Simmer Dim
by RowanGF
Summary: New at Hogwarts, Professor Muir struggles to make a place for herself. She's befriended by Professor Snape but, despite his warnings, is drawn to the DADA teacher. Prof. Lupin may have dangerous secrets he's hiding, but she has a few too. Romance'n'socks.
1. Default Chapter

Chapter One: Sortings and Secrets

Pausing on my way to the Great Hall, I leaned against the deep well of the window casement to watch the flood of students clogging the stairs below. Pulled by skeletal black thestrals, the first row of carriages rolled further along the drive to make room for more carriages coming up behind. One of these disgorged the only adult among the throng. I squinted, trying to make him out through the ancient glass, but it was blurred and the darkening sky was scarcely held back by the torches burning on the castle walls.

A light tap of my wand and a whispered, i "Oculus claro!" /i cleared my view as the little diamonds of glass squirmed and reshaped themselves to bring the image closer. Now I could see the scruffy hair and lined face of the man below. His clothes looked as if they'd been put to hard use and only a powerful charm could have kept his battered suitcase in one piece. I suppose I don't much like to dress up for a long journey either, but he would not be making much of an impression on his future students. I brushed at the sea green robe I'd purchased--with almost my last knut--for tonight's ceremony, in the hopes it would give me confidence. Perhaps he was more self-assured than me. It wouldn't be hard. Dumbledore, our Headmaster, certainly seemed to place great faith in him: his comments in staff meetings were always glowing and he spoke his name with a glitter of anticipation in his eyes.

The new professor exchanged words with several of the students and then paused with one foot on the lowest step and gazed up at the castle. Instinctively, I pulled my head back, grazing my forehead on the window well. I cursed and soon, despite my caution, found myself leaning forward again to look. He was still there. A worn man in brown robes, pale and contemplative. Assuming he was who I thought he was, he was not at all what I had expected.

The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was late arriving for the term. The rest of the faculty had been required to be back from holiday early. I had spent the two weeks preparing my curriculum, reviewing student records, and helping with the maintenance required by the ancient building. Maybe it was memories of my own DADA lessons. Maybe it was resentment that a fellow staff person seemed above pitching in with the rest of us to extricate the chizpurfles that infested the teapots in the divination tower, but I had expected him to appear as dark and dangerous as his subject. Instead he gave a small smile and began the ascent.

"So the students have descended on us." said a low, slightly nasal voice behind me. I jerked and turned to see another one of my colleagues, Professor Severus Snape, the Potions Master. He stepped a trifle too close to me to glance down out the window. "And they are not the only ones, I see."

I frowned at the detestation in his voice. Not every teacher had to love their profession, but if he was that tired of it, a sabbatical might be in order. This close, his black hair had a greasy sheen, and there was a sickly sweet scent clinging to his robes that made me wonder what he'd been brewing. I took a step sideways to reestablish a comfortable space between us.

Severus tapped the window with his own wand, releasing my viewing charm. "Looks can be deceiving," he said.

My heart took an extra thump. Was he referring to me or to the view below? I couldn't think of any way I might have slipped up already. I was too practiced at hiding. A bland smile fluttered on my face in answer, noncommittal and ingratiating.

Severus turned from me and the window, starting to walk away. "The Sorting take place soon. I'd suggest we get to the Hall now."

"Yes, of course."

He walked along beside me. I tried to avoid the feeling that I was being herded by asking how long the traditions of Sorting had been in place at Hogwarts. Severus's answers were short. Polite but not very informative. His face was tight, more secretive than usual, and there was a stiffness to his walk I'd never noticed before.

I let the matter drop. We were at the Great Hall anyway, entering through one of the teachers' doors behind the head table. I admit, I gasped at first glance. I had only seen the massive hall in its empty expectant state; now it was filling with students taking their places at four long tables. Candles floated overhead beneath a ravishing sky, and the filmy mist of ghosts swooped around shouting out welcomes.

Severus pulled out a chair, offered it to me, and then sat next to me, clasping his hands together under the wide sleeves of his robes and leaning his chin on them, eyes hooded. We both surveyed the students. I had been home schooled myself, and then went to a very small school in Europe for an internship where I was eventually hired on for a few years, until I got too homesick. It was nothing compared to the size of Hogwarts. So many young people…my imaginings hadn't been anywhere near reality. The swarm paused at a sharp voice that I recognized as Minerva McGonagall, the deputy headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She called out several names, and a boy and girl pushed backward against the crowd to follow her away.

"Not what you expected?" Severus asked. Before I could answer, he added, "I wouldn't be intimidated. Many of them are hardly worthy of effort."

"I don't know. Sometimes people can surprise you," I said, refusing to allow his bored experience to dampen my anticipation.

Professor Binns floated in and sat down next to me, if that describes what ghosts do. I asked him some more questions about Hogwarts' traditions, and he responded at great length. With an interested look fixed on my face, I avoided more sour conversation with Severus while I darted glances at the hall and my other colleagues. As the room settled down, the Dark Arts teacher came in quietly and took the last seat at the head table. He had not changed clothes. I noticed Dumbledore, our headmaster, give him a happy nod which he returned pleasantly.

The diminutive Professor Flitwick entered with a low stool and a wizard hat so old and tattered it looked like it might have come straight from the Dark Arts teacher's suitcase. The hat was carefully placed on the stool where it seemed to shudder and perch a bit stiffer; the official Sorting ceremony began. One by one the first year students were called up and the hat was placed on their heads, then after a moment in which it quite appeared to be thinking, the brim opened into a mouth and announced which of Hogwart's four houses each student was assigned to.

Once the ceremony was over and the first years had found their places at the proper tables the headmaster stood up and adjusted his spectacles. The room hushed instantly, attentive young faces flushed with excitement and shimmering in the candlelight. Their eagerness quickly changed to consternation as, after welcoming them, he told them about the dementors surrounding the grounds this term. A dangerous criminal named Sirius Black had escaped from the prison of Azkaban and was still on the loose, leading to this extremity. These fearsome creatures were supposed to be guarding Hogwarts, but I wasn't the only professor who worried the students might be in need of greater protection from the dementors themselves than any outside threat. It had been a subject of heated debate in the previous week. Sitting next to Albus Dumbledore, Minerva's thin lips were compressed even thinner in disapproval of the arrangement. A fellow Scot, I'd already decided she was a good model for me to follow. I glanced at Severus but his face was impassive.

"On a happier note," said Dumbledore, "I am pleased to welcome three new teachers to our ranks this year."

I straightened in anticipation, pushing a loose wisp of hair away from my face. When I'd told my Dad I'd got the position, he had sung a little piece of a Muggle song about '_movin' on up to the big time'. _

_"Oh, that's just grand," he'd added. "My girl working for Dumbledore, who would have thought? Dumbledore's a good man and that's for certain. You can trust him, Nerissa. He's not the sort to go clipin' to the Ministry if you tell him."_

_"No, Dad, absolutely not."_

My mouth went dry. I grabbed the goblet of water set in front of me and gulped it down. Dumbledore caught me with my mouth full so that I dribbled down my chin as he said, "First, Professor Muir, who has taken up the challenge of reviving a course of study not seen at Hogwarts for many years: the ancient art of Chanting."

There was a smattering of polite applause; Severus muttered something pleasant in intonation.

"Almost a century," Professor Binns put in quietly. "Gwendolyn Screech was the last Chanting teacher we had. She had studied in Vienna, as I recall…" He trailed off on a monologue no one else heeded because Dumbledore had gone on.

"Second, Professor Lupin, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Polite applause returned, marked by a cluster of more enthusiastic clapping from the Gryffindor table. Lupin smiled in a boyish, modest fashion. A hiss of breath caught my attention, and I turned to see Severus glaring down the table toward the DADA teacher with hate-narrowed eyes. I had heard him being gently rebuffed by Dumbledore when he'd brought up the matter of teaching the Dark Arts himself. He was angry then, but I didn't realize his disappointment was still so raw. I was so startled I barely heard Dumbledore announce the appointment of Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper, to teach Care of Magical Creatures. But the students heard it and the enthusiastic cheering made their earlier politeness that much more empty. Well, they all knew Hagrid already and I too had found him to be a generous simple soul. I didn't begrudge him his admirers as his eyes teared up and he blew his nose on the tablecloth.

Suddenly great platters of food appeared on the tables, laden with golden roasted turkeys, steaming lakes of gravy, tender bubbling pies, bedewed greens, ruddy apples and creamy cheeses. I tucked in, glad to see my water had also been refilled. Incapable of feasting himself, Professor Binns continued his monologue about all my Chanting predecessors.

----------------------------

He caught me in the hallway after the feast, attempting to introduce himself as young bodies streamed around us. The din was unbelievable as students rushed the corridors to get to their respective houses. Several of the suits of armor protested being banged into. "Have a care, you lot!"

He yelled his name as he put out his hand. "Remus Lupin, and you are Nerissa Muir." I took his hand at the same time as I was jostled from behind, shoving me into him. This close I could see exhaustion lining his face, that and the gray that already flecked his light brown hair made him look older than he probably was.

"Perhaps introductions would be better over a quiet cup of tea," he suggested loudly. "But I'm afraid I can't offer you one tonight. I need to unpack and I'm afraid my recent illness hasn't given me much time to prepare my lessons for tomorrow."

"Oh, of course! We all need a good night's sleep." I berated myself for resenting his not helping with preparations when I could see he'd been seriously ill.

"Another time, then?" It was a promise.

"Yes, certainly."

He let go and allowed the stream of students to carry him away. I turned and went further down the hall to a smaller staircase that led to my office and private rooms. Severus was standing at the foot of it, arms crossed, wand in hand; since his own rooms were the other direction and down below, I wondered if he was waiting for me. The torches on the wall guttered, sending out greasy black coils of smoke.

Severus regarded me intently, dark eyes glittering in his sallow face. "Did you enjoy the Sorting?"

"Yes, it was very interesting. It looked like Slytherin gained some fine members."

"All the greatest wizards have come out of Slytherin." It was his own house. He stepped closer. "I wonder where the Sorting hat would have put you?" He flicked his wand, and the smoke from the torches thickened and curled into an apparition of the battered hat that floated over my head.

I gave a light-hearted laugh and waved my hand through the apparition, shredding the smoke which dissolved away. I had wondered the same thing but not in the same way. The Sorting hat seemed to be able to read the students character, their hearts. I didn't know what it would do with someone like me.

"I would be careful, if I were you," Severus said.

I frowned. "You mean the dementors? I can do a patronus spell though I've never had practical occasion to use it." I didn't particularly want any of them to see what form my patronus took either.

"Let's just say that some people at Hogwarts have nasty little secrets."

My mouth opened, but I was too startled to reply before he swirled on his heel and was gone.

-------------------------------

Wednesday afternoon, I slumped in a chair in the staff room and shoved my wand into the disheveled bun of my hair with my ears still hurting from my first lesson with the sixth years. Several of the other faculty were taking a break too: reviewing notes, snacking on biscuits, or reading the _Daily Prophet._

"You look like you could use that cup of tea I promised you," said a kind, slightly hoarse voice. "Sixth years that rough?"

I looked up to see Professor Lupin standing over me, a full cup on a flowered saucer extended toward me. He appeared more rested and his tatty appearance fit in well with the faded mismatched chairs and old rubbed paneling of the staff room. I decided he looked comfortable, like an unmade bed, and the thought made me smile.

"Thanks," I said sincerely, accepting the cup.

He extended his other hand with a Dutch blue bowl. "Sugar?"

"No, thank you, Professor."

"Please, call me Remus."

"I'll have some more, Remus," said Minerva from where she was sitting with a pair of knitting needles hanging in the air in front of her, clicking out a red and gold striped Gryffindor scarf. He walked over and offered the sugar bowl to her. She shook her head, pulled out a small bottle from an inner pocket and tipped a splash of red currant rum into her cup. "Takes the edge off of first week collywobbles," she confided to me and resettled her square glasses in an imperious fashion.

Professor Lupin set the sugar bowl down on a table, picked up a cup of tea in yet a third china pattern, and perched on the frayed arm of a chair next to me.

"I passed by yesterday morning. What I heard from the passage didn't sound so bad," Lupin said encouragingly.

I nodded, admitting that was true. "Those were the first years….all four of them." As an 'enrichment' program supplemental to the regular curriculum, I relied on students volunteering to take my subject. There would be no O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s awarded this year I had envisioned a classroom bursting with eager young voices, excited by the opportunity to study an endangered art, instead there was a smattering of students in each session, hesitant, doubtful, and frightfully awful at singing.

"It will take awhile for word to get around, Nerissa," said Minerva. "You have a lovely voice and you came highly recommended from the Academie. Hermione Granger--she's a third year--was in my office just this morning asking if she could add your course to her schedule this term."

"Did you say yes?" I asked hopefully.

"She'll be joining you next week."

I felt grateful for any additions.

Lupin said, "There. I may sign up myself, if you'd consider adult education."

"Just what we need: another opportunity to listen to you howl," snorted Severus from the far side of the room.

I felt my face get warmer: so he considered my art to be nothing but howling. Up to now he had seemed crusty but friendly enough. He'd even given me a spare cauldron when I discovered mine had cracked on the journey and wouldn't hold water long enough to rinse out my socks. Apparently he'd just been covering his contempt.

Minerva made a clicking sound as sharp as her needles. "Now, Severus, you'll give Nerissa the wrong impression."

His nostrils flared but he didn't reply.

"That's why I need tutoring," Lupin added mildly, as though the comment had been directed at him. He'd never taken his eyes off me during the exchange. They were warm and brown, with crows' feet at the corners. "He's right, I'm no better than the sixth years."

"The younger generation has let Chanting slip into obscurity." Minerva added disapprovingly. "You should be proud, Nerissa. Chanting is a fine Orcadian tradition."

My tea had cooled enough to sip. It was hard not to gulp it down; thanks to the stress, I was thirsty all the time. "I guess there are advantages to living in the hinterlands. We're so far behind the times we sometimes do come back into fashion."

Lupin picked up the _Daily Prophet _ that was folded on the seat of the chair he perched on. He went to move it out of his way but paused. He put his tea down on the tiny table between us instead, glanced at me, and unfolded the paper as he sat down. He was frowning as his face disappeared behind it, scanning an article with intense interest.

I frowned too, disappointed that our conversation was over before it had really begun. Severus' rudeness only made me more eager for a friendly face. Minerva was now focused on adding fringe to her knitting. In the corner, Professor Sinistra and the school nurse were intent on a particularly violent game of wizard chess. I sighed and took another sip of tea.

Lupin crinkled the paper as he opened it to pursue the rest of the article. My hand brought the tea cup back down to the saucer with a shaky rattle. Now I could see the front page where a frog-faced woman appeared to be giving a lecture from a podium under the trumpeting headline: "Ministry Ponders New Restrictions on Half-breeds" and below that in slightly smaller print I could read, "Senior Undersecretary Umbridge vows to protect the public." The tea turned sour in my stomach. How many more restrictions could there be? Feeling myself being watched, I looked around; Severus was staring at me again.

Even worse, he got up and glided over toward me. Had the disgust been apparent in my face? "Well, it's time I got back to the dungeon otherwise someone like Longbottom might get there before me and start blowing things up. Good article, Lupin?"

Professor Lupin made no comment as he folded the paper down and set it on the floor beside him.

"You really should read it," Severus instructed me in an insistent sort of hiss, his face snirled up. "It's far more informative than the i _Prophet'_s /i usual sort of drivel."

"Enjoy your class, Severus," said Lupin. He also received a sneer that was, if anything, worse than the one he'd made concerning the i _Daily Prophet. /i _

Severus stomped out. In the silence that followed, Minerva's face was pinched but she didn't miss a stitch. Lupin cleared his throat. "I apologize for Professor Snape. He has had to take on extra work since my arrival, preparing a potion to help me with my illness."

"I-I see." My gaze flickered to the paper slumped on the floor. "Could I read it though?"

He reached down and handed it to me, face impassive. The knot in my stomach tightened as I read, stiffening my spine. If this Umbridge woman was successful with her proposed legislation, it would be almost impossible for half-humans to find employment or housing outside of strictly controlled Ministry of Magic flats. I could well imagine what they would look like. Maybe my parents had been right to live in the outer islands, as hidden from governmental attention as from Muggles.

I was still reading when Minerva stated, "I think it's ridiculous nonsense. Some people haven't got enough to do in their own lives and spend far too much time worrying about everyone else's."

"Thank you, Minerva," Lupin replied softly.

I peered over the paper at him. "You don't agree with this--this article?"

"No," he said. "I don't."

I lowered the _Prophet_ further, meeting his eyes, "I don't either."

"Good."

The knot loosened and I found a smile.

"Another cuppa?" he asked a little too heartily.

"No…no, thank you, I actually need to be getting back myself." I stood up hastily, spilling the _Daily Prophet_ onto the floor. I stooped to gather it up with Lupin helping. I ended up with a wadded mass of paper in my arms. I looked around for somewhere to put it and then stuffed it down onto the chair I'd just vacated. I stood there awkwardly while the paper slowly unfolded, like a just squashed spider whose legs were still moving.

"Before you go," said Minerva. "Would you be a dear and get me another ball of wool from the wardrobe?"

"Certainly," I replied, grateful to switch focus. There was an old wardrobe at the end of the room near where Severus had been sitting. I went to it, and as I put my hand on the little boar-shaped doorknob to pull it open, the cupboard jumped. I yanked my hand back. It wobbled again and hopped an inch away from the wall. I backed up a step.

"What's that?" said Professor Sinistra, with a long-suffering sigh. "A boggart again?"

Lupin hurried over, pulling out his wand. "I'll get rid of it."

"That's alright." Boggarts give me the willies. But I dragged my own wand out of my hair with false bravado. "I can do it." I stretched out my arm and, with a sudden flash of my worst fear on display for my new colleagues, my nerve faltered. The wardrobe rocked and a scrabbling sound like claws came from within. I took another step back so I was beside Lupin. "Actually, I'm really not that good at it, why don't you go ahead."

He brushed his hair out of his eyes and aimed his wand at the cupboard, the point glittering. I winced in anticipation.

No boggart was forthcoming. I glanced at Lupin.

He was tapping his chin thoughtfully with his wand. "This boggart might make an excellent first lesson for my third years tomorrow. Minerva, do you think you could find some other wool so I could leave it there till then?"

"I'd ask Albus's permission about leaving it; otherwise, I don't mind myself," she said.

With a rumbling growl, the wardrobe shuddered and the wood creaked with the strain.

"Maybe I should, well, calm it for awhile then, so it won't bother anyone until tomorrow," I offered. That much I could do easily without having to open the door and face my fears. Or let everyone else see what they were.

He eyed the wardrobe speculatively. "That might be wise."

I licked my lips, thinking fast, and settled on a lullaby my mother used to sing to me. I took a deep breath, spread my arms, and began to weave the sounds in the air, wrapping the chant around the wardrobe until the rattling ceased.

"Very nice," said Lupin softly.

"Thank you."

Scrutinizing her knitting over her square spectacles, Minerva intoned solemnly, "Music hath charms to sooth the savage beast."

-------------------------

The tub was very deep. I had Chanted it deep enough and long enough that I could lay full length completely submerged if I wished to. I spun the tail of a mermaid-shaped tap and while the welcome sound of water bubbled out, I went out to my combination sitting room and bedroom and checked that the door was locked. I returned to the bath and sealed that door with a i colloportus /I charm; then I striped off my clothes and sank blissfully into my warm refuge. It wasn't like diving into the frigid waters off the rocky coast of my home but it certainly had its charms.

I felt the tension of my first full week begin to leave my body. I had survived, and while it hadn't met my fondest expectations, I was far from ready to turn in my professor's robes and fly screaming back to my father. Remembering what I'd overheard from the students in the Great Hall, I giggled. What I wouldn't have given to see Severus all dressed up in a housedress and a vulture-topped hat.

That led to thoughts of Remus Lupin. I slid down a bit further, the water level even with my chin and indulged in speculation. His disapproval of the Minstry's restrictions on half-humans replayed over and over in my mind. What Dark Art question or concern could I come up with that might justify stopping in to visit with him? Not that I would say anything directly, but he had seemed so sincere--and the intense way he'd looked at me, as if my answer was significant. Aside from the fact that he'd graduated from Hogwarts himself, and that the students always seemed to be chattering admiringly about him, I knew almost nothing at all. Yes, I definitely wanted to know more. If I was going to make Hogwarts my home, I needed as many friends as I could muster.

With a compulsive glance around to make sure I was alone and the door securely locked, I slipped under the water and stayed there.

An hour later, I walked through to my bedroom in my nightshirt, drying my hair, and froze. The door leading out to the corridor from the sitting room was cracked open. I cocked my head and heard the retreating sound of footsteps. In two bounds I was over to the door and yanked it open. I stuck my head out. The corridor was so murky I could not tell if I was seeing movement, black on black, or if my eyes were merely adjusting to the dark. I stared but there was no one there.


	2. Loss and Desire

Chapter Two: Loss and Desire

Opportunity found me one afternoon in Hogsmeade. Autumn had descended in glorious red and gold, as if the countryside surrounding Hogwarts had put on Gryffindor colors in anticipation of the first quidditch match coming up next week. Saturday turned so warm that I left my heavy robes behind and wrapped a shawl around my shoulders to head down from the castle to visit the neighboring wizarding village. Having found the herb shop first off, I purchased a packet of horehound and slippery elm to sooth my throat whenever it got tired during classes. A pile of leaflets was sitting by the till, so I picked one up and saw that it listed all the most important sights in Hogsmeade for the discriminating tourist. I had the whole day to myself, and a nice bit of walking sounded just the thing.

Much of the leaflet turned out to be a listing of shops, not surprising since I read on the back in small print that the local merchants association had produced it, but one item caught my eye: the Shrieking Shack. I located the shack on the leaflet's map and set out at a brisk pace. The place stood a small ways outside the village, on top of a hill. 'Stood' wasn't really accurate: it slumped miserably, a forlorn building whose decay seemed to extend to the sickly clumps of grass and bushes that surrounded it. As I drew near, I saw a familiar figure leaning against the fence surrounding the shack. It was probably the influence of the shack, but I had a sense of overwhelming loneliness as I looked at him.

"Hello!" I waved.

Lupin startled and turned around. "Oh, hello." He had acquired a red and gold muffler that looked suspiciously like the one Minerva had been knitting. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

I brandished the leaflet. "The tourist thing, I'm afraid." I unfolded it and read out, "The Shrieking Shack is the most haunted building in Britain. Even most ghosts avoid it due to the incredible cries and sounds of destruction that echo from it at night, especially around the full moon. Visitors are discouraged from trying to gain entry as it is has been sealed for your own protection." I squinted at the boarded up windows, the bolted door, and chained garden gate and shuddered. "I assume there are magical barriers as well."

"Yes. Dumbledore personally made sure that whatever is haunting that thing can't get out." He nodded at the shack. "And that curiosity won't kill the errant Hogwart's student."

I leaned against the fence next to him, focused on the building. We were silent together, comfortably so, though he was still pensive. After awhile, I said, "That's funny. This place is shabby enough, but it doesn't look that old, does it? The architecture, I mean. I thought it usually takes awhile for a place to acquire a number of ghosts. Look at Hogwarts: it's hard to imagine a building more haunted than that."

"It's something of a local mystery," he admitted.

"A mystery awaiting a brilliant Defense Against the Dark Arts professor to come and solve it; is that why you're here?"

Lupin laughed, "Good lord, no," and grew serious. "Besides, some mysteries are better left unsolved." He turned sideways to rest on his elbow so he was facing me and studied me until I felt warmth creeping up my neck.

I cleared my throat, nervously. "Having such an object of interest just off the school grounds must have led to any number of capers over the years."

"I imagine so."

"You went to Hogwarts, didn't you? Don't you recall anything from your salad days?"

He tried to hide a smile. "Nothing I want to admit to." He seemed to shuffle off any remaining thoughts I had interrupted and put his hand on my arm to lead me away. "At least, not in this dismal setting. Let me buy you lunch. It's always better to reminisce on a full stomach."

We walked down the hillside and back into Hogsmeade, where we found a booth at the back of the Three Broomsticks and ordered the Halloween special: bat-shaped sandwiches and spiked pumpkin juice. The Three Broomsticks was a friendly little inn, moderately busy with witches and wizards stopping in for refreshment during an afternoon's shopping. There were multiple posters of that criminal Sirius Black plastered on the walls, including on the one behind Lupin, so that when I looked at him the intense, haggard face of Black hung over his head. Our food arrived and we guttled it down while whatever they had added to the pumpkin juice made a pleasant heat spread through me like water. I relaxed against the padded leather seat, and when Lupin asked me about my home I told him of the little stone cottage built into the lee of the cliff and the wash of waves on the shore, regular and reassuring as breath.

"It sounds isolated."

"Yes, but so peaceful." It was never my home that made me feel lonely.

"Is that why you never came to Hogwarts?"

"My parents thought--it seemed so very far away. I did have companions from the neighboring islands. I went to a friend's Mum to learn Potions and Herbology. She had a small business out of her home selling ingredients and some of the more difficult potions she brewed. My Dad taught us all Astronomy and my Mum--my Mum taught Transfiguration."

"And Chanting?"

"That was Mum too. It's a family tradition." I was getting far too comfortable talking about my mother and looked for a new topic before he asked questions I didn't want to answer. I would have hated lying to him. "You never told me about your Hogwart's escapades and I think that was the whole reason we came here."

He examined his glass, rolling it thoughtfully between his palms. "It feels strange to be here without my old school friends. Things have changed, but I still expect to see their faces when I come into a classroom or sit down in the Great Hall. I miss them in a way I haven't appreciated in many years."

"Do you still have contact with them? You should send them an owl."

His face darkened. "I'm afraid that's not possible."

"I'm sure they'd be delighted to hear--"

"No, I mean, they're all…gone."

"Gone?" My voice lowered. "You mean…dead?"

Lupin nodded. "Or might as well be. He Who Must Not Be Named was very thorough to those around me." He looked at me. "I'm surprised Severus hasn't told you about it. He seems eager to engage you in conversation."

I pulled my shawl closer around my neck. "He went out of his way to make me feel welcome when I arrived. I've appreciated his kindness." But Severus's attention worried me for reasons I couldn't identify. His attitude had changed, he seemed more sullen now. I even suspected it had been him in my room the other night--surely a student wouldn't have been able to break my colloportus spell--but didn't want to discuss why he might have been there, what he might have been looking for.

"I'm glad to know he has a friend. He never had many at school. And I know I did nothing to make it easier."

"I didn't realize you two had gone to school together."

"Yes. But we didn't get along."

"That explains why he has been so cold toward you. Of course, the vulture hat hasn't helped, nor the red handbag."

"Ha! No, they haven't!" He grinned. "Nor the way the story keeps growing among the students. Yesterday, I overheard a fifth-year saying that boggart appeared in a purple negligee."

I giggled, snorting some of my pumpkin juice, which only made the both of us laugh louder. He tried to hand me a napkin, but I knocked over his glass in the process. I gave a little squeal as the juice ran across the table toward my clothes.

"Scourgify!" he exclaimed, wand hand faster than my own, and the glass righted itself, reclaiming the liquid, while the crumbs from our sandwiches flew onto our plates which neatly stacked themselves to one side of the table. Professor Lupin tucked his wand back into his pocket and picked up both our glasses. "That's better. I'll go get a refill, shall I?"

"Yes, why not?" My cheeks felt flushed. I had promised to send an owl to my Dad today, and I still had some shopping I needed to do, but it was too wonderful sitting there laughing with him. "But I'll buy this time. I insist." I dug in my pocket and handed him a few of the lonely knuts I had left. "We're both on a teacher's salary."

He took the coins and returned a few minutes later. It was another hour before our conversation came back around to his history at Hogwarts, and this time he was more forthcoming. He told me about trying to catch the giant squid that dwelled in the lake, and about sneaking a stinksap plant into Filch, the caretaker's, office and leaving it on his chair so when he went to sit down it sprayed him with foul-smelling pus.

"Poor Filch," I said. "It's hardly surprising he's become so sour. The messes he has to put up with from Peeves and all."

"He was sour already. James swore the stinksap wouldn't even bother. And then Sirius--" He must have seen my eyes flicker upward to the chilling figure in the poster over his head because he broke off and his happy expression changed, closing to me. "Yes, that Sirius. He and James Potter and Peter Pettigrew, whom he killed, were my best friends. I would not have come back to Hogwarts, despite Dumbledore's insistence, if he had not escaped. Now I'll do whatever it takes to protect Harry Potter, I owe it to James."

I put a hand to my mouth and said, breathlessly, "Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry?" He looked wary, as if that was not the response he'd expected from this revelation.

"What a terrible loss for you: of all three."

"You count Sirius as a loss?" he challenged. "He betrayed James, and his wife, Lily, you know. It's his fault Voldemort found them and murdered them."

I winced at the sound of that name and replied, "Of course, Sirius too. You can hate someone's actions and still love who they were." He was quiet, no longer meeting my eyes. My Dad always said it was my compassion for full-humans that led to my success in the world. Now no doubt it had led me to tread on very thin ice, but I continued softly, "He betrayed you too when he left you as the only one to remember and feel the pain of it."

He took a quick gulp and then sat back, brushing his thick graying hair out of his face. With an airy laugh, he remarked, "If you can find compassion for such a creature as Sirius Black, even Severus might win your affection."

"You've found me out, yes, me and Severus," I said, laughing too. I was afraid he would find reason to leave then, but he turned the conversation again and we stayed for yet another hour talking. We strolled back to Hogwart's together--I would just have to do my shopping another day once I had more knuts to spend and Dad would understand if his owl came a day late. When Remus held out his hand to me as we rounded the lake across a crop of slippery stones, I took it willingly.

---------------------------

Hogwarts castle was done up beautifully for Halloween. Enchanted spiders had spun the crests of each of the houses in glittering strands hung over the door to the Great Hall. Quite independent of whomever was casting them, our shadows bowed to each other and waltzed along the hallways in pairs to silent music. Unable to afford new robes, I chanted on my way to dinner that night, drawing the candlelight like a ghostly cloud around the collar and hem of my black gown. Tiny stars winked in my long dark hair. I sat down at the teacher's table at the end Remus favored, far from the place Severus usually chose. Professor Pomona Sprout came in, a bit of monk's hood growing out of her hat for decoration this evening, and sat down beside me. We exchanged pleasantries. I complimented her on the way the little monks were each assuming an attitude to reflect one of the seven deadly sins, when I heard the chair on the other side of me pull away from the table and someone sat down, a knee brushing my leg under the table.

I turned with a smile, expecting to see Remus. It was Severus.

"Good evening, Nerissa," he said.

"Hello," I replied, trying not to let my disappointment show.

"Hello, Severus," Pomona chimed in, merrily. "Brewed up anything special for this evening?"

"No," he snapped.

I glanced over his shoulder, several places along the table Remus was sitting down beside Professor Flitwick, smiling and cheerful. I tried, but did not catch his eye.

The Halloween feast was delicious: great steak and kidney pies with crusts formed like pumpkins, vats of steaming toad in the hole, marrows au gratin, pumpkin cakes and treacle tarts. After the meal the castle ghosts put on an exhibition of their best flying tricks, sweeping overhead through the snaking streamers in precise formation. Through it all Severus maintained a polite demeanor, even asking me if Halloween was marked in any special way by Orcadian witches. He was back to the kindness he'd shown me before the term began, when he'd given me a tour of the castle and offered a healing draft when I caught a cold. My mind went back to my unlocked office door. Perhaps I had been wrong and it had never been locked in the first place. We all made mistakes, and I had been so tired and stressed from my first few days of class, so eager to be successful, so paranoid of being discovered.

I examined Severus' pallid face and hawkish nose, wondering what had happened in his life to make him seemingly incapable of smiling. He Who Must Not Be Named had harmed so many during his brief but deadly reign. The best and brightest had been in the greatest danger and Severus was an accomplished enough wizard to have caught his interest. I was hardly the one to judge Severus. No, I felt sympathy instead. All the guilt and ambivalence I had felt in those days came flooding back, for as long as the danger existed, my mother's protective instinct overrode her own desires and she stayed with Dad and me, but as soon as Voldemort's power was vanquished she said goodbye. Voldemort's destruction had seemed so far away to my adolescent imagination, and the warmth of my mother so very near. Part of me had cursed the little Potter baby, for in ridding the world of You Know Who, he lost me my mother. Right when I was on the verge of womanhood and most in need of her, she slipped away forever under the waves. I searched for her for many months, but she was gone.

Now I was the one brooding. I shook off the memory and realized the feast was over and the Hall almost emptied of students. Severus was standing beside me, hand on the back of my chair to pull it out for me. "Perhaps an evening stroll along the lake? The giant squid is lovely in the moonlight," he ventured.

"Oh." I felt the need to make up for my earlier suspicions, and maybe being near the water, even if I could not go in it while he was with me, would wash away my melancholy. "Yes, all right."

We were at the castle door when a commotion on the staircase up to the Gryffindor tower made us pause. There were shouts and someone yelled for Dumbledore. Turning around, we saw the headmaster sweep by, followed by Minerva and Remus. Severus scowled at the interruption in our plans and reluctantly said, "We'd better see what's going on."

"Yes, of course." I trotted in his wake, glad the students cleared such a wide path for him to get through since I was shorter and much less imposing. I heard Dumbledore saying, "We need to find her," and stood on tip toe to catch the rest of his instructions. I gathered that something horrible had happened to the Fat Lady, the portrait that guarded the entrance to the Gryffindor common room.

Cackling overhead made us all look up to see Peeves the castle's nasty little poltergeist bobbing in mid-air over the scrum on the staircase. His answer to Dumbledore's question about who had destroyed the painting made me gasp: Sirius Black!

It seemed impossible that he could have got past the dementors and into the castle. My mind was buzzing as we herded all the students back into the safety of the Great Hall. Dumbledore ordered the doors sealed to keep Sirius out and to keep in any errant student who might want to try their hand at heroics. Then he divided us up to search the castle.

"Mr. Filch, if you would please see to the dungeons; Professor McGonagal, Madame Hooch, the astronomy tower and seventh floor please. Madame Pince, the library."

"I'll take the third floor," Remus volunteered.

"I'll come with you," I said, stepping up next to him. "We can do the west tower too." Severus glared at us and his voice was tight as he offered to team up with Professor Flitwick to search the fifth and sixth floors.

Remus and I hurried up the staircase past the muttering and fearful portraits. Wand raised and glowing from its tip, Remus ran, breathing hard, a feverish intensity as he took several steps at once. I could barely keep up.

A sickening thought struck me. If Sirius Black was in the castle tonight, he could have snuck in before. It could have been he that had unlocked my door. I had kept the incident secret because of my own fears. In doing so, I may have jeopardized the safety of all the students and Harry Potter in particular. He was, after all, the one Sirius Black was hunting. Dumbledore had explained it to us before the term began so we'd understand why he allowed the dementors to surround the grounds. My heart beat fast from more than mere exertion.

At the fourth floor landing, two long galleries met. On one side was the school trophy room and adjacent to it, the ancient castle's armory where suits of armor stood in rows between pillars hung with swords, shields, and other mundane weapons.

"He could be anywhere," I panted.

"Yes," said Remus, grimly.

We walked a few steps into the armory together. My senses were on high alert, my wand in my hand. My face showed pale and heart-shaped in one of the shields. I saw Remus' nostrils flare slightly as if he was sniffing the air for danger.

"Sirius always liked playing with knives," he muttered under his breath.

"Wait," I said, swishing my wand. i "Constrictio." /i Clinking sounded all along the gallery as the weaponry was stuck firmly in place. "He won't be able to use anything from in here."

"Good thinking."

The suits of armor turned their heads as we passed, our footsteps echoing until Remus applied a silencing charm to our shoes. There was no one there. We paced the length of the trophy room next. Torches guttered in sconces that were shaped like the mascots of the four Hogwarts' houses . They sent a million stars glinting off the cups, plaques, and medals. Rows of little gold nameplates on a Gryffindor shield listed the names of the house prefects going back to the beginning, Remus's name among them. There was no place for Black to hide here.

The Charms corridor was next, with several classrooms leading off it. We quickly checked the first two. The third was locked. I tried to open it with a simple i "alohamora" /i but it stayed tight. Remus frowned and cast a jinx that blew the handle off. The door slowly swung inward into darkness and silence.

"Lumos!" Remus whispered and the end of his wand flared with light.

A drape covered something huge in one corner of the empty room, something tall enough to brush the ceiling. A light glinted under a fold of the cloth. I crept closer, grabbed the corner of the drape and gave it a sudden yank. It slipped down with a flump to reveal a mirror with an ornate gold frame. The glint caught my eye again and I realized that it was just the reflection of Remus's lit wand. He came up and stood behind me putting one arm around my shoulders and raising the other so we could both read the inscription carved along the top of the gold frame: erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

"Is it an incantation of some kind?" I asked.

"I'm not sure."

I felt his grip on me tighten. I gazed at his reflection, the two of us standing together. The image wavered slightly, as though I had blinked, but I hadn't, and we were still there, gazing back out at ourselves. "Do you see anything?" I asked.

"Just the two of us, together." He sounded breathless.

"Me too." Yet I didn't want to leave it. We had more of this floor to search. Black clearly wasn't here. We should go on. I could feel the rise and fall of Remus's chest against my back. His lips were near my ear. All I had to do was turn in his arms. Just turn. I was transfixed.

"Enough! There's more of this floor to search," he said, and pulled me away toward the door. I swear his hand was trembling.

----------------------------

The rest of the search proved just as fruitless. I had started up the stairs when behind me I heard Remus mutter, "Hang on, where was that…?" and he turned around and headed back along the corridor. I followed to find him standing in front of a statue of a witch with one eye missing. He was running his hand along its hump, frowning.

He glanced at me and explained, "When I was at school there was a secret passage through here. Not too many people know about it but Sirius does. Now what was that password again? Ah yes, _dissendium_." A narrow door slid open behind the witch.

"Careful," I said and bit my lower lip as he turned sideways and slipped in. After a moment of listening intently, I stuck my head in. Fetid moldy air caressed my cheek. A stone slide descended into darkness and I put one careful foot on it, not wanting to slip down accidentally, not wanting to have to go down there at all. To be trapped in such a tightly enclosed place would make me quite claustrophobic. I couldn't see where the slide ended but farther along, in what looked like a low earthy passage, Remus was squatting in a puddle of light, examining the floor for signs of footprints. When he stood up he drew a deep breath, again as if he might be able to find Black by scent alone.

"Do you see anything?" I called.

"No." I couldn't tell if he was discouraged or relieved.

"Where does this tunnel go?"

"It comes out in a sweet shop in Hogsmeade."

"Hogsmeade? Then it's unlikely he got in this way. There are dementors patrolling Hogsmeade at night."

"That's true…yes…I'd forgot that. He can't have come this way." But he didn't sound certain and he paced down the passage a few feet into the velvet blackness, light fading with him, before coming back. "And I don't think he's dodged down here to hide. Come one, we'd better report in. Maybe someone else has had better luck."

Much to my relief, he scrambled out and dusted himself off.


	3. Chocolate in the Owlery

Chapter Three: Chocolate in the Owlery

But no one had had better luck. There was no sign of Sirius Black and after Headmaster Dumbledore called off the search at 3 a.m. I fell into my bed with a leaden feeling twisting in my stomach. Unable to sleep, I stared at the door which I knew for sure was locked this time. There would be no reason for Black to be in my room, I told myself. I got up anyway and searched it for secret passages, but there were no hidden panels behind the bookcase. Nor could the mouth of the giant stone toad hunched in the corner gape open to reveal a mysterious doorway. Tired at last, I crawled back into bed and dreams of slipping down slides into cold dry cells where Sirius Black poured me a cup of tea with rum in it.

The next day I decided to talk to Remus about secret passages, but I wasn't able to catch him alone in either his office or the Great Hall. By Tuesday, the issue seemed less pressing, more my own paranoia. And by Thursday, when I did find the opportunity to talk with him, Remus was looking pale and exhausted, obviously not feeling well again. I expressed my concern, tried to suggest ways I could help of him which he politely declined, and left feeling more worried about him than any silly concern of my own.

The first quidditch match of the year was Saturday. I hadn't seen a lot of quidditch beyond what my friends played in the garden, though it was rare we had enough kids together to have two beaters. As the students filled the stands, all dressed up in the colors of the house they favored to win, I looked for somewhere neutral to sit, if that was possible. It wasn't. And the weather had taken a terrible turn, the wind lashing my hair against my face and rain soaking through my cloak before I even found a place to sit.

"Professor Muir." Severus was beside me. "You look a little lost."

"I am," I admitted.

"Come with me."

I looked around for a better option and then followed. He indicated two seats at the front of the Slytherins. Hufflepuff and Gryffindor were playing today so I supposed if I wanted to seem neutral it was better to sit with one of the other houses. Straining to see the stands through the storm, I could not spot Remus over among the eager mass of Gryffindors.

I sat down and adjusted my robes while students filled in around us. Severus sat beside me like an oasis of calm among the excitement, only the glitter of his dark eyes showed he was as interested in the game as the rest.

"It's a shame your team wasn't able to play today," I said, because originally it had been the Slytherins scheduled. The Hufflepuffs were playing against Gryffindor instead since the Slytherin seeker had been injured in some sort of accident in Professor Hagrid's class. I had to speak loudly to be heard over the roar of the wind and the spectators.

"Yes, a shame, but it's still a pleasant way to end a particularly difficult week."

"Students on edge after Halloween?" I had noticed it myself, a certain distraction and tendency to quarrel among themselves.

"No. I took on Lupin's classes while he was…indisposed."

"Oh, I didn't know you'd done that. It was good of you to help out."

"Yes." He paused and looked at me more intently. "Do you really think so?"

"Of course. Do you--do you know--is Remus feeling better?"

"He should be over the worst." It was a hiss. "He'll be able to do his own work again next week."

"Oh, good," I said, lamely. He would hardly want to be discussing Remus. I asked a few questions about quidditch, and he introduced me to the Slytherin team's seeker, a ferret-faced blond boy who had his arm in a sling. He and another boy had tiny models of quidditch players that zoomed out of their hands and around their friend's heads. One of them was so battered it had zoomed past my face several times before I realized it was supposed to be dressed as a Gryffindor seeker. The reason for its mangled appearance became apparent as another toy player in green swooped by and slammed a bludger right into the seeker, knocking it to the ground. I was surprised Severus didn't say something sharp to the boys who were likely to take someone's eyes out with the way they were playing, but then the wind and the number of umbrellas being blown about were even more dangerous.

Soon the game began, and I tried to follow the action through the sheets of rain. Thank goodness one of the students was commentating or I wouldn't have been able to discern what was happening at all. The players swooped around the gray skies like smudges of living color, the quaffle and bludgers were well nigh invisible. With a sinking feeling, I realized that if the seeker couldn't see the snitch, we'd be sitting here well into the night.

I shivered--it was very rare that I felt cold--and mumbled a warming chant under my breath. It was suddenly much colder, and I wished I'd never come to attend the game. I wasn't even sure why I was at Hogwarts at all. I was a fraud, without talent, disdained by the full humans around me, and merely humored by Remus who was too considerate to avoid me. A well of loneliness broke open in my chest, threatening to stain my face with more than rain.

Severus stood up, tense. "What are they doing here?" he growled.

I followed his line of sight, squinting, and wiped my eyes at the sight of dozens of dementors floating purposefully onto the field. He slammed his fist into the wooden edge of the spectator's box, inadvertently crushing the toy seeker which had swooped around us again, and shoved away through the crowd. I blinked and came back to myself. Shaking off the cold, bits of broken toy, and silence wrought by the dementors' presence, I hurried to follow him, surrounded by gasps as others became aware of the dementors too.

Taking two steps at a time down off the stands, Severus and I made it to the field. He was jogging ahead, robes whipping out behind him. I heard screams from above and my own fear made me pant. The cold squeezed the breath from the chest. Suddenly the black figure ahead seemed to have multiplied and I realized several dementors were closing in behind Severus. Instinctively I reached into my robes and pulled out my wand.

With great effort, I aimed and shouted, i "Expecto patronum!" /i A silver bolt shot out of the end of the wand and coalesced into a sleek seal that swam like a bullet through the air to scatter the dementors. Severus whipped around, surprised, in time to see them flee.

"There are more!" I shouted. "They're everywhere!" By now I had caught up with him and we stood back to back while the seal circled almost playfully on an invisible current around us. Another scream made us both startle. Above the field, a red speck came plummeting out of the sky. As it neared the ground, I realized it was the Potter boy. Severus raised his wand to try to save him regardless of the distance, but before he could utter a word the boy's body jerked upward as if caught in an invisible net and then slowly sank to the ground. Dumbledore was running onto the field, and even with the rain, I could see a naked fury in his face as frightening in its own way as the dementors.

"Stay here and don't let the dementors into the stands!" Severus left me with my patronus to stand guard. But Dumbledore himself dispersed the rest of the dementors and none of them dared linger. As my fear dissolved so did my patronus. Students peered down the stairs and then came down to see what was happening, but I shooed them back until I knew we had the all clear. Dumbledore came by with Potter floating on a stretcher, headed for the school's hospital wing. Minerva and Poppy Pomfrey, the school nurse, paced along either side of the stretcher with very worried expressions on their faces. Severus followed them up but he did not continue on into the castle, instead he came back to me and gestured me to join him around behind one of the great wooden beams so that the students wouldn't overhear us.

"Why were they here? Was it Black?" I whispered.

"No. I think they're just getting hungry. All these exuberant children were too much to resist."

I shivered in response. "Is Potter going to be all right?"

"Yes. He fainted and fell off his broom." His voice dropped lower. "I want to thank you for what you did earlier."

"I was afraid you didn't know they were there."

"I didn't. But not everyone would have acted so quickly on my behalf. You have a fine patronus, Nerissa." And for a moment I thought he might smile. There was an awkward pause. "Well, just thank you." He hurried off, and I went to tell the young people jammed at the top of the stairs, shivering and scared, that they could return to the castle.

---------------------------

As Severus predicted, Remus was back to work, though wan, in a few days. I was dying to know what exactly was wrong with him. It was obviously a chronic condition but I could think of nothing it might be. Yet he never spoke of it, never complained of tiredness or pain, and since he seemed to have vigorously recovered again, I didn't want to seem too nosy. I was just glad that we both found reasons to often be in each other's company: he loaned me a book on dark creatures of the Midlands and I taught him a little ditty that, when sung or hummed while sewing, made mending invisible and twice as strong as before.

Autumn quickly disappeared into an early snowfall and whatever understanding I might have come to with Severus disappeared with it. He became more surly than ever, glowering at Remus whenever he saw us together. Remus pretended not to notice and even in private never said a word against him As much as I wanted to know what strange illness Remus suffered from, I wondered even more why Severus hated him so much. Yet Severus was always polite to me personally.

As December began, I looked forward to the Christmas holiday. I was going to go home for a week, visit my Dad, and spend as much of my time as possible on the stony beach. I said as much at our monthly staff meeting when Minerva asked me if I would be spending the holiday at Hogwarts.

She gave a crisp laugh. "Well, you may be as hardy as a highland sheep, but my bones are getting old enough to prefer the warmth of a castle fire."

After the meeting, when most of the other teachers had left Dumbledore's office, I lagged behind to ask Remus the same question. I had half a mind to invite him to come home with me, though it meant getting Dad to distract him so I could swim.

"No," he said, hoarsely, slumped in one of the great overstuffed chairs Dumbledore had conjured for each of us. "I don't think I'll be joining in on any Hogwart's festivities." I peered at him; he looked terrible again, his skin almost matching the graying of his hair, dark circles bruising his eyes.

I squatted down beside him and put my hand on his arm. Quietly, I insisted, "Can't I do something for you?"

He managed a pale smile. "Don't concern yourself. I'm fine."

"Perhaps Madame Pomfrey--"

"Nerissa…," he interrupted, and squeezed my fingers with his usual strength. "Don't worry."

But I did worry and that evening after dinner, and an hour or two of correcting essays on the magical properties of minor chords, I picked up the copy of I _Dark Creatures of the Midlands /I _ and went round to his rooms to check up on him. Standing outside his door, I hesitated. What if he were sleeping? Oh well, what nurse did not wake their patient to see to their well-being? I knocked softly but got no reply, so I went back down to the second floor to see if he was in his office, preparing a speech about working too hard as I went.

I rapped sharply on the door this time. "Professor Lupin?" I listened carefully to the silence beyond the door before knocking again. "Remus?" I thought I heard a noise. I cleared my throat and said, "I've brought back the book you loaned me."

Yes, there was definitely someone moving around in his office. I waited for him to open the door or tell me to enter. Neither happened. "Remus? Are you all right? Can I come in?" It sounded like footsteps; they paced right on the other side of the door and moved away again. "Remus?" I put my hand on the doorknob and tested it. It was locked. "Please let me in."

Stepping back, I stared at the door for awhile, then, with a sigh, reluctantly walked away. Potential tragedies galloped through my imagination. Five steps was as far as I got before spinning on my heel and charging back, pointing at his door with my wand and a firm i "Alohamora!" /i 

The lock clicked and the door swung open slowly. It was dark in his office, and I paused at the threshold for my eyes to adjust. A boomslang lay curled in a small tank on a table next to a pile of books, parchment, and a stuffed and mounted porlock. "Remus? It's me. I'm sorry to intrude…I was just worried…are you all right?" He wasn't there. But I know I'd heard footsteps. A goblet sat empty on the desk with a faintly foul wisp of smoke still curling from it. With great trepidation I peered around the other side of his desk, afraid I'd find him passed out on the floor. To my relief he wasn't there, but movement caught my eye.

I leapt back. Coming out from under the desk and slinking around the chair was the largest wolf I had ever seen. It gazed at me with yellow eyes and I froze. I had been in Remus's office enough times to expect an odd creature or two but not a full grown wolf unrestrained by spell or cage. In slow motion, I took a step back and turned my head to judge the distance to the door. The wolf sniffed at me, sat down on its haunches, and opened its mouth enough that its tongue could droop out. Surprised, I stopped planning my escape and regarded it out of the corner of my eye so it wouldn't think I was staring at it. No animal could have assumed a less aggressive pose.

"Are you tame then?" I asked it softly. It tilted its head at the sound and continued to regard me with curiosity. I slowly squatted down so I was on the same level and waited, then I inched closer to offer it my hand. The wolf snuffled at my scent, gave my fingertips a lick, and then stretched out on the floor with a loud huff.

"I didn't know I was that boring," I replied, relief in my voice. I couldn't believe I was so close to such a powerful and amazing animal. It might not have been wise, since I knew nothing about it, but, keeping low, I shut the door and slid around so that I was sitting cross-legged beside the wolf. Reaching far enough out to stroke its beautiful gray head, I said, "You're gorgeous. Where did Remus find you?" The wolf twitched its ears and rolled slightly so that I could dig into the dense fur around its neck for a good scratch. "Good boy," I cooed. "Why would you be here? I hope no one wants to make out that you're a dark creature too. Do you know where Remus is?" I sighed. "If only you could tell me."

I fell silent and the wolf scooted closer so that his head was across my lap. He closed his eyes as I continued to scratch, fingers burrowing into his soft fur. I rested my back against the desk. It was just as soothing for me, sitting there. A calming chant my mother used to sing came to mind, and I began to hum. I'm not sure how long I stayed, but my legs had fallen totally asleep before I moved that great head gently off my lap and tiptoed out of the room.

I slunk along the corridor back to my own room, staying in the shadows and crossing dark patches without making a light. I did not want anyone, even the paintings, to wake up and see me sneaking from Remus's office at that time of night.

--------------------------------------

"Professor Muir, are you headed up to the owlery?" Remus asked me from his classroom door as his students filtered out at the end of the hour.

I held up the small package for my Dad he must have spotted and nodded. "Would you like me to take something up for you?"

"That's all right, I'll come with you." As the students trooped out he tapped one boy on the shoulder and said, "Good work today, Neville. Why don't you take another five points for Gryffindor?" The boy, who had been shuffling along staring at his feet, straightened and blushed about the ears. Remus ducked back into the classroom and came out with his cloak over his arm and a letter in his hand.

He came over to me and we started up the staircase. "I know someone who may be able to get me some hinkypunks," he said, then dropped his voice so only I could hear. "I'm thinking of using them for a final exam this spring. But it will take some time to collect them so I've got to put in a request now."

We marched up together, pausing to let the staircase re-arrange itself which then meant going back down a floor and taking another route. I was less familiar with this set of stairs and just as I was trying to remember which step one had to watch out for, my foot slipped and plunged right through the next riser. Yelping, I sunk as far as my knee and muttered a curse word worthy of Peeves. Hiding a smile, Remus helped me out but he made no comment on my lack of grace, vocabulary, or red hot ears.

When we got to the owlery, the bright afternoon sun was piercing to the tower room's floor, illuminating the furry grey lumps of half-frozen owl pellets all over a layer of straw. Above us, puffed up for warmth, a few hundred owls snoozed and muttered at the interruption of our presence.

"Goodness," I said, mouse bones crunching underfoot, using the most pristine word I could think of, "It's about time Mr. Filch got up here for a good cleaning."

"Sometimes he needs a little extra time. It's a big castle, and he's a squib so he has to work twice as hard."

"Oh, I didn't know that. Well then…" I tucked the package under my arm so I could take my wand out and flick it. i "Scourgify!" /i The worst of the owl pellets disappeared though the straw was still dirty. I didn't know where it was kept to summon more. "That's a bit better."

We each called for an owl to come down and take the mail. They all pretended not to hear us the first time, it was the middle of day after all, but eventually a barn owl and a larger tawny one came down grudgingly and clicked their beaks at us as Remus attached his letter to one and I tied my package to the leg of the other. The owls hopped to the open window and took off in quick succession. I went to the window, where it was less likely one would be decorated by the gentle rain of owl droppings, to watch them swoop low over the forest and pick up altitude to vanish into the distance. The whomping willow shuddered as they flew past, as if frustrated it could not reach high enough to swat them out of the air.

"Has anyone ever tried to tame it?" I pondered out loud.

"Tame what?" Remus asked.

"The whomping willow. It seems like a very dangerous thing to have on the grounds of a school. I suppose there are things in the forest that are none too friendly either…" I mused, scanning the skeletal branches of trees spreading around the castle like a gray and black moat. I turned around and leaned on the window ledge, something else brought to mind. In a rush, I said, "Listen, I came to your office a few nights ago to return a book and--well--you didn't answer but I heard something. I thought it was you, and I was worried--you looked so tired the other day--and so I opened your door anyway, but you weren't in there--and I saw that wolf you had, and I've been meaning to say something to you about it. I mean, there are lots of creatures that have a bad reputation but aren't truly dark at all. They're really quite gentle and family-oriented. Of course, anything could be dangerous if cornered, and there might be individuals who do evil things, but in general the creatures really don't deserve the fear that humans have of them."

He had raised his eyebrows. I had clearly startled him, and he spoke carefully when I paused for breath. "Are you talking about the wolf?"

"Yes. They aren't dark creatures and I'm afraid that if you use one in your class you'll be giving the students the wrong impression about them. They don't need more bad press. The one in your office was very gentle. I sat and petted him for hours. I know I shouldn't be interfering, it is your class after all, but it's been bothering me enough I just needed to have my say. Sorry." Heat rose in my cheeks, but I kept my face up, determined.

"Well…" Nonplussed, he looked down and toed the dirty straw, muttering, "Well…I thought it was a dream." Finally, he looked back up at me and smiled wryly. "I agree with everything you said, and I assure you I never had any intention of using that wolf in any of my classes. He was…visiting, that's all."

I let out a breath, my shoulders sagging. Now I felt a little foolish. He was one of the most considerate men I'd ever met, and I had jumped to conclusions. A frigid breeze whipped through the owlery, rustling feathers and straw, and blowing hair into my eyes.

"Cold?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine."

But he came and stood beside me, spreading his cloak out with one arm to envelope me as well. Relieved at this gesture that he didn't hold it against me, I snuggled into the warmth of his hug. He smelled good, like wood smoke and trees. The sunlight lit his graying hair, turning it almost the same shade as the wolf's.

"I'm sorry I bit your head off," I said and stretched up to give him an apologetic peck on the cheek, but he turned his head and our lips met. We kissed for a long moment. My stomach clutched in a way that both ached and was exciting at the same time. I parted from him reluctantly, the thrill of pleasure already giving way to fear. If I allowed our relationship to go beyond being friends, if that was even anything he was interested in, then I would eventually have to tell him, and he would reject me like all the others. As he hugged me closer, I pressed my cheek against his shoulder, tears forcing their way to my eyes. He noticed when I sniffed.

"Why…What are the tears for?"

I scrubbed my face. "Nothing. I'm being silly."

"I don't have to kiss you again."

"No, please do." And he did. Then he pulled away enough to reach into his pocket and take something out. He handed it to me. "Here this might help."

I looked at the wrapper. "Honeydukes chocolate?"

"It's the best. Chocolate is worth the extra expense. I've been keeping it on hand what with dementors around. It does wonders after one of them; it might help your tears too."

"You think so?"

He shrugged. "Couldn't hurt."

"You're the expert." I broke a piece off and offered him some. It was wonderful stuff: smooth, melting, and not too sweet. I leaned against him again nibbling my piece, and I did feel better.

He cleared his throat and said with a strange unconcerned air, "So what did you do those hours when you were with the wolf?"

"Nothing. I sat down and he put his head in my lap. I scratched his fur--he has a wonderful pelt, hasn't he?--and Chanted to him. He slept mostly."

"What did you sing?"

"The first thing that came into my head. Something for soothing children when their bellies are upset from too many sweets."

"How does it go?"

"Oh, it's a silly little thing."

His voice softened. "I want to hear it."

I glanced up at him and saw that he was serious. "All right." I swallowed the last of my chocolate and began humming. I did a quick translation into English in my head and added words the second time through.

i _Hush, child, take no fright_

_Calm the beast inside_

_Morning, noon, or longest night_

_I'll be by your side._ /i 

I felt Remus relax, he shifted so that he was sitting comfortably propped on the window sill, keeping his arms around me and we stayed until it was time for the last hour of classes, at home amid the rhythmic spatter hitting the straw from above.


	4. Suspicions

Chapter Four: Suspicions

December seemed to disappear, and I took my leave to head home for Christmas. Returning to my father's cottage made me realize that I really had made a place for myself at Hogwarts. I no longer felt quite like my shoe was always on the wrong foot, and I had friends: Minerva, Pomona, and yes, even Severus, as harsh as he could be sometimes. And Remus. We were both very busy before the holidays, but it was enough to exchange a word at breakfast or pass a smile in the corridor.

I returned the day the spring term started, with the scent of seawater still in my hair. I flung myself into teaching with a renewed spirit, happy to be back. The feeling lasted all week, and perhaps it was my own ebullience that made my Friday class so excitable. The pots of seedlings, kindly provided by Pomona for my third years to enchant into growing faster, shot out of all control. Roots exploded clay pots, dirt flew everywhere, and vines almost strangled a little Hufflepuff girl.

So covered in dirt, with the bun of my hair dangling sideways off my head and my arms full of severed branches continuing to burst into bloom, Severus caught me running down to the greenhouse to show them off. The corner of his mouth twitched as if he might laugh.

"Having trouble, Professor?"

"A little too much exuberance today." I huffed at a stray bit of hair tickling my nose.

He reached out, caught the strand and moved it aside. "Some of us are taking one of the coaches into Hogsmeade this evening to see a lecture on ethical experimentation with jinxes. Are you interested?"

"Yes, that's fine," I replied, too distracted to pay much attention.

"I'll meet you at the front steps at seven o'clock."

A pod exploded into bloom, releasing a cloud of pollen right in my face. I sneezed and edged around him to keep going. "Seven o'clock."

At quarter 'til seven, lounging on my four-poster after a long delicious bath, I suddenly remembered that I'd agreed to go. I ran a brush through my hair, threw on my cloak, and scurried down to the wide sweeping steps that led from the main doors. A coach was waiting as promised, and I ran down to it to rap on the door.

Severus opened it and offered a hand to pull me in. I plopped on the seat opposite him, breathing hard. "Sorry I'm late." Then I realized we were the only ones there.

He knocked on the ceiling of the coach to signal it to start rolling. "No one else could make it, I'm afraid," he answered before I had formed the question. "I'm glad actually. It will give us the chance to talk." I nodded, but then he didn't say anything more, just sat with half-lidded eyes regarding me. The scent of moldy old straw filled the coach, the springs creaked, and I pulled the collar of my cloak up, as if cold, to block it. Watching out the window, I shuddered as we passed through huge wrought iron gates guarded by dementors on each side. I remembered that Hogsmeade would be crawling with them in the evenings. "What about the dementors?" I asked Severus.

"I've made arrangements."

Fortunately, the ride was short and the lecture was moderately interesting, though not well attended. Afterward, we walked briskly along one of Hogsmeade's snow covered lanes, and I noticed that--arrangements or not--Severus kept his wand in his hand the whole time and jerked his head around to scan the streets as if he anticipated being followed. He asked if I'd been in the Three Broomsticks yet.

"Oh yes. Remus and I had lunch here once."

His face darkened. He must have been disappointed not to be the first to show me around Hogsmeade. He shoved the door open with more force than necessary, and I picked out a small table near the front windows. There were plenty to choose from, the room was almost deserted. Having dementors about could not have been good for business. A candle on the table cast a cozy yellow glow on the windows, and looking through the frost etched panes glass, it was hard to imagine that anything dire lurked beyond them.

"Two fire whiskeys," Severus said to the landlady before slipping off his cloak and sitting down. He leaned on the table, stroked his chin contemplatively, and then said, "I daresay I have a confession to make."

I raised my eyebrows.

"When Dumbledore asked for our opinion on whether Chanting should be reinstated at Hogwarts, I said no. I had always regarded it as an inexact art, more show than substance. Now I know that view was mistaken. You're quite a powerful witch."

"I'll take your change of heart as a compliment."

The landlady arrived with our drinks. Bored for lack of customers, or hoping for a larger tip, she had fancied them up with pink parasols that accidentally burst into flames when the whiskey sloshed up as she put them on the table. When I reached into my pocket for a few knuts, Severus waved me away. "I'm buying. I invited you out after all."

I tried not to frown. That had not been my understanding of what we were doing this evening.

"It's intended as a compliment. I can admit when I've been wrong. I'm only human after all."

I flinched and covered it by taking a gulp of fire whiskey, something I never drank as a rule, with or without ashes floating on it. My eyes instantly watered.

"I have been teaching at Hogwarts for twelve years now," Severus continued, "And in that time I've seen a number of professors come and go, especially those that have taught Defense Against the Dark Arts. I don't like to speak ill of my compatriots, but Dumbledore seems to have a difficult time finding anyone who is up to the task. I think you should know that I don't regard you as one of them. I can see you having a successful career here, so you might not want to invest much energy in those unlikely to be staying on."

"Are you suggesting that Professor Lupin's skills are insufficient for his position?" I asked cautiously.

"Ah, Lupin. Certainly Lupin is very knowledgeable about the Dark Arts." He flicked the cindered remains of his parasol onto the table. "You might almost say he takes to it like a mermaid to water."

"But?" Anger stiffened my spine.

"But there are other--issues--that make him unsuitable."

Was he talking about Remus's illness? That was hardly Remus's fault, and I only had respect for the gracious way he handled it. True, Severus had had to fill in, but I'd like think any of us would help another professor that way. "I've only heard good things from his students and from the other staff."

"Those in my house might give you a slightly different opinion. He tends to favor Gryffindor because that was his house when he was in school." I thought back to Remus saying, "Take another five points for Gryffindor, Neville," and shifted in my chair uncomfortably. After another large swig, my glass was almost empty, and my throat was burning. I could have used a goblet of water.

"I'm not sure why you're telling me this. Isn't his suitability for Dumbledore to decide?"

He hesitated and reached across the table to put a hand on my arm. His nails were stained slightly blue from his latest potion, which surprised me because he was always impeccably dressed, in fact this evening he had even washed his hair. "I'm concerned, Nerissa. It would be a shame if your feelings got hurt…or anything else for that matter."

I 'tsk'ed, nonchalantly. "Now you sound like he's dangerous."

An inscrutable smile flickered across his face. "You know we went to school together."

"Yes, he told me." I lifted my chin defiantly.

His grip tightened. "Did he? Then it seems he left out the important parts. He was great friends with Sirius Black. So much so it's hard to imagine he doesn't harbor some sympathy to this day. How very odd that even Dumbledore can't figure out how Black got into Hogwarts without help from the inside."

I withdrew my arm out from under his hand. "Remus told me about Black. He also said you two didn't get along. But that was a long time ago, none of you are children now, things change."

"And some things stay the same. And some things are not easily forgotten. I'd suggest you ask him more about our school days. I'd be fascinated to know how he explains himself." He took a sip while keeping his hard black eyes on me. The candlelight yellowed his complexion, sharpened the bitter lines around his mouth.

I rubbed my forehead. "I'm getting tired. I'd like to get back to Hogwarts. It's late and I'd rather not push our luck on running into the dementors prowling the streets."

His voice was silky, caressing. "With your patronus I doubt you have anything to fear."

"I'm not foolish enough to find out." I pushed away from the table. "Please, Severus."

"As you wish."

-------------------------------

Minerva McGonagall peered through the doorway to examine the puddle of bubbling muck that had been a classroom floor on the fifth floor. She pulled back, holding a sleeve over her mouth and nose. "And you say it was a study group of fourth years that did this?"

I nodded. A cluster of students stood around us, mewing their disgust and enjoying every minute of it. "We've been working on mending chants, and they jumped ahead on their own and tried some of the cleaning ones, but they ended up transfiguring the floor instead of mopping it." I was impressed actually, but it didn't seem the time to mention it to her or to the fourth years. "They tried to close the door, walk away, and pretend it hadn't happened but the accident--uh--" I coughed, holding my own hand over my face and swallowing hard to keep my stomach contents where they belonged, "--advertised itself. When they confessed I sent for you. I could probably figure out how to clean it up but you're the transfiguration expert so I thought--"

"Not a problem," she said, briskly. She pulled out her wand, frowned behind the square lenses of her glasses for a moment, and then said, " i Mutatus! /i " The ooze trembled and fell back to bubbling again. She drew herself up as if personally offended and proclaimed " i _Finite incantatum!" /i _with such a jab of her wand and sharp command in her voice that several students jumped. This time the floor heaved once and settled back into stone though the stench lingered in a greenish haze still rising on the air. "There. All back to normal." Her expression dared anyone to suggest otherwise. She strode away and I had to jog to catch up with her.

"Thank you. I'm so sorry to have bothered you," I said, once we got far enough away I could take a deep breathe again.

"Nonsense, Professor, you are hardly responsible for the mistakes of your students. If you inspire them to strive beyond what's in their books, then that is a compliment." Amusement tugged at her habitually stern expression. "They all seem to have made a substantial leap forward lately."

"They have; but I'm a bit worried at the rate at which things keep blowing up now they have finally got the hang of it."

The students were still interested in the stench of the room; I could hear one of them daring the others to enter. Glancing back at the noisy cluster at the far end of the hall, I said, "Minerva, have you got a moment? It's a personal matter."

She stopped and looked inquisitively at me.

"You're been teaching here a long time, haven't you?"

"More than thirty years," she said with pride. "Why?"

"What's your opinion of Professor Snape?"

Her lips grew thinner. "He is a gifted potions master, and he has served Hogwarts loyally and dependably."

I carefully worded my next question. "So you would consider him to be reliable?"

"Yes, I would." Her answer was clipped.

"Oh," I replied softly, not sure what answer I was looking for.

"And Remus--um, Professor Lupin? I know he hasn't been here any longer than I have, but you knew him when he was in school, right?"

"Certainly. I taught them both." She glanced back at the students before lowering her voice and her head to ensure the privacy of her next comment. "It's no secret from me that you are fond of him and I'll wager a badger that the sentiment is returned."

I nodded, eager for her words, blushing that my own feelings were so obvious, delighted and frightened that her assessment of his might be true. I didn't expect the sadness that softened her face or the hand that momentarily pressed my arm in sympathy. "I'm not surprised, my dear, you are young after all; but be cautious." She snapped back to her usual brusque voice, attention drawn back to the students. "Weasley! What are you doing there?" And she marched back toward the room with students scattering in her wake.

I hung around and tried to appear helpful and authoritative, but the moment to pursue my curiosity had passed. The crowd dispersed finally and so did the stink, so I went to my office where a pile of essays on the uses and categories of defensive Chanting awaited me. After downing a large glass of water, I sat down and tried to work. I unwittingly read and scored the same essay three times before I gave up. My mind was wandering and the contentment I'd worn since the holidays seemed to have faded away like a wisp of green stench.

Stuffing the essays under my arm, I returned to my private rooms hoping that I could concentrate better after a good long soak. I set the essays down on a table and paused. I'm not a tidy person by nature, but I always know where things are among the mess. The table was awash with parchment pages of musical notations for a small chorale I was working on in my spare time, only some of the pages were out of order. I picked them up and shuffled them into their proper piles. I turned slowly and surveyed the room to see if there was anything else out of place. It could have been house elves, but I had given strict instructions to leave my music alone and they had complied scrupulously. Anyway the rest of the room didn't look as if house elves had been there. The fireplace was full of ashes, dirty socks lay by my big poufy chair, a broken belt was laid over the stone toad's shoulders, and the bed was rumpled.

The bed. My heart thumped and I ran to it to thrust my hands deep under the mattress. My fingers closed around the silver case I kept hidden there and I pulled it out. It was safe. Hugging it against my chest, I dropped into my chair and gazed at the room in consternation.

----------------------------------

"Ah, here you are," said Remus. My rooms no longer felt reassuring. When I wanted to think or relax, I had started coming down here to a sheltered spot on the lakeshore. It was rocky, and the half-frozen silt had a green smell to it where it was lapped by the waves. I'd heard Remus's footsteps crunch on the loose and skittering pebbles, so I wasn't surprised when he squatted next to me. "Good thing I spotted you from the tower or I'd never have found you. You've been hiding lately."

And he had been avoiding me as well. Always brushing by in a hurry, coming in late to grab a last minute piece of toast and promising to sit down the next day. "I just needed some fresh air," I responded quickly.

He raised his hands, "I was only teasing."

"Oh, sorry." I wrapped my arms tighter around my legs, hugging them to my chest.

"How long have you been out here? Aren't you cold?"

I shook my head, once again having forgotten my cloak, so he helped himself to a patch of pebbled ground and stretched out his legs in front of him, his own robes wrapped snugly around his thin form.

"The squid must be hibernating," I said. "It used to come up to have me stroke its tentacles." The sun was sinking into the west bank, lining the far shoreline with orange and shadows. I longed to dive down into the lake, to sink below the depths and bask in the weightless caress of the water. Fin Folk lived down there, and so I avoided it because I knew Dumbledore spoke Mermish. The hem of my robe was wet and dirt-stained from dangling my feet in the ice-crusted water.

He shifted position uncomfortably. "I haven't got to spend much time with you lately."

"You haven't been feeling well; I didn't want to tax you." I glanced at him. His cheeks were tinged pink with frost and health. "It looks like you're better again."

"Yes." And I noticed that he quickly changed the subject. "I've been doing some extra tutoring in the evenings with Harry Potter. I'm a little worried about him with Sirius still out there somewhere. I thought it wouldn't hurt if he knew a few more defensive spells."

"Oh. That's good of you. That would keep you busy." Impulsively, I added, "Do you know of any reason why someone might be getting into my rooms?" I watched his face intently, hoping I would know if it was him.

He looked genuinely surprised. "Your rooms? Why? Is something missing?"

"No. But I believe someone has been there nevertheless, and I can't imagine who it might be. The other day some of my papers were out of order, and today there was a strange smell I couldn't place. It seemed familiar. I searched but couldn't find any source."

His brows were drawn together. "It could be house elves, you know, though they don't have a funny smell that I'm aware of. A new cleanser perhaps? Or maybe a student playing a prank with a dungbomb."

"A poor sort of prank if I can't find it. Besides I generally get along with my students; I don't think I'm a likely target for that sort of thing." He still seemed concerned and unfamiliar with what had been happening, so I took the next step to see how he'd respond. "I'm wondering…well, you know what he's likely to do more than anyone…do you think by any chance that it could be Sirius Black? He did get into the castle once before, and we never were able to find him."

Far from trying to draw suspicion from Black, his puzzled frown became more worried. "I can't think what interest Sirius would have in you, but maybe you should tell Dumbledore. It might not hurt to give your rooms a thorough search."

"I've already searched them," I said in a hurry. "Several times." The last thing I wanted was someone going through my things, especially Dumbledore. Remus truly seemed as confused as I was, and I noted that he had not offered to search my rooms personally as I would have expected if…well, if Severus's insinuations were true. Unless he was a very convincing liar. That was hard to believe with him this near to me. I ached to have him hold me like he had in the owlery, could feel my body leaning toward him almost of its own accord, but my conversations with Severus and Minerva had crawled into my heart, eating away like a grub of doubt.

A breeze blew past us, bringing with it a sudden realization that almost made me gasp. I bit my lip and mumbled, "Just forget it. I'm sure you're right. It's a prank. Maybe the Weasley twins are getting more subtle."

He laughed. "That would be a shame…Listen, Nerissa, would you like to come back inside with me and have a cup of tea?"

"No thank you, I think I'll stay here awhile longer. I'm…thinking."

He looked stricken. "Oh. All right then." He got up and patted at his now slightly soggy behind. "So I'll see you tomorrow at breakfast."

"Yes."

I watched him walk away, the dejected line of his shoulders begging me to change my mind. But I now remembered where I had encountered that strange scent in my room before: wafting from the goblet in Remus's office. I dropped my head onto my knees wishing I had the power of legilimancy so I could read his heart.


	5. Old Friends

Chapter Five: Old Friends

The more depressed I became, the friendlier Severus was to me. He started stopping by with various reasons to chat and--something he'd never done before--stayed stubbornly sitting beside me when Remus joined us at the staff table in the mornings. I appreciated his intention to cheer me up, but the performance was severely lacking, full of subtle and not so subtle jabs at Remus. I didn't care that Severus thought my hair was more appealing down, or that he thought the quip I'd made at our staff meeting about Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's cat, was particularly clever.

I didn't even bother going down to breakfast on Saturday and hid in my room, probably the only living person at Hogwarts not down at the quidditch pitch that afternoon to see the game between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. I needn't have been there to know who won. That afternoon the Gryffindors returned to the castle in triumph and the bangs and whoops of celebration, children floating down the hallways with cheeks crammed full of fizzing whizbees, and jennycrackers bursting outside the windows, went on all afternoon and well into the night.

I buried my head under my pillow and tried to sleep. I blamed the Gryffindors, but their noise had faded into the distance, and it was really my own perplexity that held me hostage. If things didn't change I would soon look as haggard as Remus. Did he lie awake at night too? I rolled over and stared at my dark room. Silver moonlight pierced the window, lined the edges of my furniture and a pile of dirty robes on the floor. The remains of a fire smoldered on the hearth, coals turning to ash that was silver too. My eyelids drooped, sleep releasing me at last.

"Nerissa!"

I twitched and sat up, disoriented. Remus's face was hanging, ghost-like, over the ashes.

"It's me. Can I come through? It's important."

I pulled my blanket over me. "I suppose."

A second later he stepped into my room, carefully knocking the ashes off his feet onto the hearth before he stepped onto the worn carpet. He was dressed in his usual threadbare robes but his hair was ruffled up, as if he'd just been roused from his own bed. Without preliminaries he said, "Sirius is inside Hogwarts. He just went after one of the Weasley boys with a knife. Dumbledore told me to wake you; we're searching the castle again."

My mouth dropped open. Instantly, I swung out of bed, too anxious to be modest about the ragged Wigtown Wanderers nightshirt that I was wearing. I ignited the candles around my bed, dug into the pile of dirty clothes to shake out my purple robe, and pull it on over my nightshirt. Though it only took a minute, Remus paced like a frustrated animal on the hunt. I slipped into some shoes and picked up my wand from the bedside table. "Ready."

"Come on, we've got the dungeons this time."

Down, down we went, taking turns shooting fireballs to bounce along the walls and ignite the torches. Our footsteps echoed loud against the flagstones, shadows scattering before us. The first corridor led to the kitchens and the Hufflepuff common room. Professor Sprout was standing outside the door, a ferocity to her stance that made it clear she would happily set one of her precious mandrakes on anyone who tried to get past her. Rather than turn everyone out of their houses, the students had been confined to their respective common rooms with the heads of houses on guard for the duration of the search.

"All clear here," she said, nodding us on our way. "And I already had the house elves search the kitchens."

"Good," Remus answered. We continued past the corridor's portraits of vegetables and Christmas cakes, without a second glance into the kitchen, jogged down the inclined corridor to a deeper level, and skidded into the first classroom, an unused empty room in which Technicolor molds seeped between the stones. "Nothing," he muttered.

We went across the hall to find another empty room with rusted chains thick as my body hanging in loops from the ceiling. Squinting up at the huge heavy links, I said, "I thought Black was after Harry Potter, why would he go for someone else?"

"Harry shares a dormitory with Ron Weasley. Sirius attacked the wrong bed."

"Is Weasley hurt?"

"No. Though I doubt he'll sleep easy for awhile. Sirius must have realized he had the wrong boy. He hasn't seen Harry in twelve years but all it takes is one look at him to know who he is. He looks just like James."

"I don't understand," I said, as we proceeded down the corridor. "Why didn't Black go ahead and kill Ron Weasley? He would have known the boy would rouse the castle."

"I don't know. I doubt he makes any sane decisions anymore."

"An insane man doesn't successfully escape from Azkaban, doesn't avoid capture when the entire wizarding world is looking for him."

"I'll ask him when we find him," he replied, grimly.

The hallway turned, went down another three steps, and expanded in width and height. Arms crossed, Severus glowered in a puddle of light along a blank stretch of wall, pacing irritably. The entrance to the Slytherin common room must have been hidden somewhere behind him.

"Seen anything, Severus?" Remus asked.

"If I'd seen anything do you think I'd be wasting my time standing here?"

"Are your students all right?" I asked. "They must be very frightened."

"Of course they're all right. Slytherins are not flighty little children whimpering over nightmares. My seventh years are perfectly capable of defending things on their own here."

Remus said, "Dumbledore's orders, Severus. You stay; we search. Take it up with him."

As we brushed past I saw Severus's grip on his wand tense, turning his knuckles white, as if he was selecting a jinx to aim at Remus's back. My own back tightened, but it was only Severus's words that followed us. "Be careful in my office, Lupin, you wouldn't want to get burned or accidentally knock over your very special potion. Where would you be without that?"

Remus ignored him, aiming his wand to ignite the torches ahead of us. He pushed on the heavy door into the potions classroom and I slid in, wand poised for trouble. Worn, scrubbed tables and stools filled the room in rows, braziers, cold and dead, sitting on each one. Water trickling from a gargoyle into a basin made the only sound. Remus slipped in too, and I raised a finger to my lips, jerking my head toward a large cabinet. He nodded, silently approached it, and yanked the doors open suddenly. It was so filled with jars and bottles of ingredients there wasn't room for an escaped criminal.

He lowered his wand. closed the doors, and gave a sigh that hung as frost in the air. "Nerissa…I should have offered a minute ago: I'll go back and take over for Severus if you'd rather continue the search with him."

The offer startled me, the more so because I realized I had forgot to be afraid of him; in all the excitement, trusting him just came naturally despite any warnings. If he was in some kind of alliance with Sirius Black, searching the castle with him became an entirely different endeavor. Would he deliberately try to distract me? Was his offer an attempt to get Severus away from protecting the Slytherin common room so Black could gain access?

"No…no, like you said, Dumbledore's orders. We'll keep going. Isn't Severus's office next?"

The office was as cold as the classroom, so that our breath continued to come in puffs. I found myself trying to keep one eye on Remus while expecting Black to come leaping out from behind a specimen cabinet with the other. The office was cramped. Foul-looking creatures floated in jars on shelves lining one wall, and cauldrons of several sizes were set up ready to brew. A fairly large one that squatted in a corner was half full of something blue and smoking.

At the desk, Remus pulled over a scroll that lay open by a quill and serpent-shaped ink pot, so he could read the writing. "Looks like Severus is experimenting with swelling solutions. Well, nothing here; let's go. There's still the ballroom and several oubliettes to check out. I also want to go back and just make sure of the kitchens, regardless of what the house elves said."

But I didn't answer, having been drawn to the blue-steaming cauldron with a rapidly beating heart. A white scum swirled across the potion's surface, like clouds covering the moon. "Remus?" My voice sounded higher than normal. "What's this?"

He came over, glanced at it nonchalantly, and said, "That's the potion Severus makes for me. Nasty stuff."

"And this is what was in your office that night?"

"What night?"

"The night I spent with the wolf. In the goblet."

"Yes, very probably. I have to take a lot of it and quite frequently too."

"I had forgot," I whispered. "Severus is the one who makes it for you."

He wore a wary expression. "Yes, he does. He's very skilled."

I whirled around to look at him. "This is it! This is the smell! The one that was in my room. And I thought it was you because I smelled it that night in your office, I didn't know that that was your medicine, and I had forgot that Severus makes it for you."

"You thought I was the one--" he began, but I grabbed his arms and shook him.

"Don't you see what that means? It means it could have just as well been Severus. And if that's the case then everything he's been saying about you is a lie too."

Remus became more guarded still. "What exactly has he been saying about me?"

"That you can't be trusted. That you're in league with Sirius Black. That you even tried to kill him once. Lots of things. Ridiculous things. And I can't imagine that I even half-believed them. But now I see why he's been so happy lately. He knew it worked, that he'd made me doubt you." I hugged him as he stood there befuddled. "Oh, Remus, I'm so relieved."

He patted my head awkwardly. "But it still could have been me, if this is what you smelled."

"No, I just needed some other answer. I'm sure of it." I smiled up at him. "I'm sure of you. Please, please forgive me."

He crushed me to him so that I couldn't see his face but his voice was thick. "When you became so distant after your date with Severus--"

"It wasn't a date," I interjected.

"--'Conversation' then--I can't tell you how worried I was. I knew something had changed. I i _was /i _ part of a foolish prank that almost killed him. But I didn't know what he had said, or how you felt about it--about me. It's been eating me alive." He leaned back enough that he could take my face in his hands and gaze at me earnestly. "There i _are /i _ things you should know, things I want to tell you, but not here, not now." With that he kissed me hungrily, and I buried my fingers in his tousled hair. Sirius and Severus and all the rest of them were irrelevant to the singing in my body's core.

He parted from me firmly, holding me back. "Not now, but soon." He kissed his fingertips and pressed them gently against my lips as if setting the promise there.

Holding hands, we left the office just as Severus came up to it. His glance took in our entwined fingers and the flush I felt on my cheeks. "Good to see you're hot on the trail, Lupin," he sneered.

"We'll check the oubliettes next," he replied, pulling me away.

--------------------------

Once again, Black escaped capture and this time Dumbledore brought in more extreme measures to enhance security. I was afraid he might even allow the dementors on the grounds, but when the suggestion was made, he closed the discussion with the first rude word I'd ever heard him utter. Instead, trolls were installed in the seventh floor hallway, clumping up and down in a frightful temper and looking like they might have mashed Gryffindor for dinner some evening. Everyone was on edge and the staff, including myself, spent our evenings repairing or enhancing the various protective spells that swathed the ancient castle. By Saturday, I don't think a moth could have got in without Dumbledore's express permission.

And also by Saturday, the students were quite ready for their weekend in Hogsmeade, and I was anticipating an entire afternoon with Remus. It was a sunny day that teased the senses with a springtime still weeks away. I wondered if he'd be up for taking a boat out on the lake or maybe picnicking in one of the greenhouses. I wondered enough that I did a bit of spot cleaning just in case. I kicked my only other pair of shoes under the bed, scooped the clutter off the Undressing table into its already overstuffed drawer, and jammed the drawer several times trying to get it to close while quills, parchment, and a bottle of hair tonic threatened to spring out all over the floor. While I was about it, a house elf arrived in my room with a message from Remus requesting we meet on the seventh floor by the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. It seemed a funny sort of suggestion, but I'd have been willing to meet him in Filch's closet if that's what he wanted.

"There you are," he said, when I got to the seventh floor landing, waving from in front of the tapestry. Several of the trolls woven into it paused from their attempts to bash their ballet instructor and wiggled their fingers at me too.

"I'm glad you came. I have a surprise for you." He grinned.

"Here?"

"Oh, yes," He took my arm and walked me to an ugly puce vase taller than myself, turned, and walked us back the other direction. "There are advantages to having been slightly lax about the rules when I was in school."

We got to a window, and he twirled us around facing the vase again. I said, "I thought you were a prefect."

He walked us back to the vase. "Not a very good one. I probably know more about this old place than anyone, except maybe Dumbledore."

I started to laugh as he turned us around again. "What are we doing? Is this some sort of dance like Barnabas the Barmy?"

"Patience," he instructed, and led me back to the window. "Now close your eyes." He steered me around in a wide circle again. "Now open them."

I blinked. A wooden door had appeared in the formerly empty wall, bleached as if by salt air. He opened the door and beckoned me in. "Just what we required."

"What is this room?" I breathed. A stone hearth took up much of the opposite wall with a cast iron stove built into it, much like that in my Dad's cottage. A much used kettle sat steaming on it, and metal arms that swung over it were hung with a wet pair of gray woolen socks for drying. Faded antique lace covered a narrow shelf built over the mantel, perched on it was an oil lantern, candlesticks, and an old clock. I ran my fingers along the back of a sofa of faded red velvet sitting a comfortable distance from the hearth. The table in front of it bore a tray with sandwiches, fruit, and a small plate of cakes.

"It's whatever you need it to be. Do you like it?"

"It reminds me of home," I said in awe.

"I was hoping it would. You described it so clearly to me back at the Three Broomsticks. Please sit down." He picked up a big earthen jug and set it nearby me. "Water. If you require it." My face must have shown my consternation, because he added, "Only I would be hard pressed not to have noticed your addiction."

I sunk into the sofa and took a deep breath. "It even smells right." I sighed. "I do miss the air, the sky--we call it the 'lift'. This time of year it's like the sun never even quite rises; there's only six or seven hours of daylight. When the haar--the sea fog--rolls in and covers the land everything is shrouded in a magical mist. It's beautiful and awesome and frightening at the same time. Like you are alone in the world, and the sun will never return. The moon is nothing but a smudge of gray on gray. And there's a tonal quality in the haar, when it's just you and the sky and the bit of earth you can see at your feet, that I've never found anywhere else."

"No moon?" He asked wistfully, sitting down aside me.

I shook my head. "Or stars. For weeks on end. In the summer it's the opposite, then it's the simmer dim, when the sun doesn't go down entirely. It rests below the horizon, just out of touch, and it's always twilight."

"The simmer dim. There's no night?"

"Not really. No."

He stared into the fire, visible through the iron grate of the stove, focused on some distant thought that drew him away from me. And I wanted him back, so I chattered on, "I do like the snow here though. It's lovely. We don't get much snow at home. Sometime I'd like to try sledding. The slopes around Hogwarts are steep enough but I don't much relish sliding into a dementor's lap, if they have laps. Do you know what they're like under those robes?"

He nodded absentmindedly.

"On second thought, I don't think I want to know." I handed him a napkin and held the plate of sandwiches in front of him.

"This is brilliant. Let's tuck in."

We ate our way through to the cakes after which Remus moved the dishes and tray away to a sideboard, and we both sat back with our feet up on the table, balancing teacups on our laps.

I gave a contented sigh. He copied me and we both laughed. He rubbed his belly with a groan of pleasure. "You know, I think I've gained a kilo or three this year. I'm not used to having house elves to look after me. What was that chant for greedy little sweet-guzzling children?"

I patted him. "Poor old thing."

"No, really, sing it to me again." He took my hand and sipped his tea contentedly as I chanted softly. As the last note faded, he took both of our teacups and set them out of harms way. I turned so that I'd be facing him when he scooted back, meeting him with a kiss. His lips parted to taste me, and I only reluctantly gave them up a minute later so he could move on to kiss my eyelids, my temple, the place where my jaw met my neck, and whatever grave secret he said he had to tell me couldn't possibly matter.

A loud pop made me jump. The fire flared high enough the flames shot through the grate of the stove door and licked the top of it, where the kettle was warming, then fell back again. "Lupin!" came Severus's voice, shrill and indomitable. "I want a word!"

"Oh, Merlin's beard!" I cussed at the interruption, to Remus's obvious amusement.

"He sounds serious."

"He sounds furious," I corrected.

Remus hesitated; I could see his struggle.

I said, "It's all right. Go ahead and go. I'll wait."

He looked relieved. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

He tapped the stove. i "Ignisaugeo." /i The grate opened out, stretching big enough he could stoop and step into the swirling flames. His image spun and disappeared, and I flopped back on the sofa with a frustrated huff.

It seemed like forever, long enough I began to wonder if the interruption had been deliberate. Maybe Severus had even been watching us from the fire. I certainly wouldn't have noticed if he was, the delicious tingle in my belly blotting out everything else. The iron grate gaped like a dragon's open mouth in front of me.

A roar from the fire signaled Remus's return. His figure re-appeared, revolving, and then he stepped out, brushing himself off. He tapped the stove with an offhand shrinking spell and it returned to its original size. An old bit of folded parchment was in his hand and his brows were drawn together in consternation.

"What was that about then?" I asked.

"Old Snape had got his claws into Harry Potter. But I have to agree with him this time." He opened the parchment a bit so I could see its blank, time-stained surface. My eyes opened wider as I saw the smooth skin was growing veins, black spidery letters surfaced across it and formed the words: "Mssrs. Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs convey their compliments to M. Moony on landing such a tasty bit of crumpet."

I drew back, shocked, while Remus blushed and quickly folded it again.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Nothing but trouble." He shoved it in his pocket and sat down, then seemed to reconsider and drew it out again. "It's a map," he confessed. "A map of Hogwarts. I said I wasn't a good prefect. My school friends and I created it to aid us in our misadventures. This is how I learned so much about the castle and grounds, and avoided the sort of consequences I more than deserved. Filch confiscated it--not that he knew what it was--but he assumed anything he found on James was dubious, and once it had insulted him…that was it. I have no idea how Harry got a hold of it, but I gather he's been using it to sneak out of the castle."

"But Sirius Black--!"

"Exactly what I told him. All this trouble to keep him safe and he skips off to Honeyduke's like it's a game."

"He's a thirteen year old boy, Remus. It's very hard to convince the young that they aren't invincible."

His shoulders sagged, anger leaving him. "I know…" A shadow crossed his face as old pain split open again. Grimacing against it, he whispered, "I would have done anything to defend my friends. Voldemort was like a plague striking everyone around me, and no matter what I did, I was helpless to save any of them. When Lily and James died, my whole world fell apart; I didn't know how to bear it. But there was still Harry, and Dumbledore wasn't convinced that Voldemort was gone for good, so whether I wanted to or not, I had to find a way to live with what had happened. Dumbledore told me to have patience, that there would come a day when Harry would need me. So here I am and a fine protector I am! Who knows how many times that boy has gone into Hogsmeade? It seemed so important to teach Harry how to defend himself against the dementors, but all it did was make him over-confident and reckless."

The fire popped and crackled merrily. A cozy trickle of steam leaked from the teapot, oblivious to his pain. I could have pulled him close, stroked his head, and patted him, but I knew there was no taking away his grief, no matter how I tried. I sat up straighter. "He's James's son. You can't be surprised if he acts like it, nor are you to blame for it. Only I won't argue with you because then you'll do something stupid, like defend your position. So I've had my say, now show me your map."

He seemed a little stunned. After a moment staring at me, he unfolded the parchment like an automaton and blinked down at it as if he'd never quite seen it before. "I--I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The ink lines bled out over it again, racing across the surface, tracing walls and borders, labels popping up everywhere, and tiny dots tagged with names moving as if fleas inhabited the drawing.

"It's amazing," I said, awe-struck. "You boys did this yourselves?"

"Well…yes…it is quite good actually." His earlier blush tinged his ears again.

"So I take it you're Moony?"

"Yes, Moony, Loony, Lupin, you know." But he looked away, intensely interested in the map himself now.

"Where are we?"

He unfolded another section, smoothed it out, and pointed at the seventh floor where I found two dots close together labeled with our names inside a box labeled I Room of Requirement. /I 

"And where is Severus?"

"In the dungeon I imagine." He scanned another section of the map. "Yes, in his office. And Harry and Ron…are in Gryffindor tower where they belong. Talking to Hermione Granger it looks like."

"Oh, I know her. She's in Chanting with me. She'll talk some sense into them, and if she doesn't I could always teach her a Chant that will glue their legs together."

Remus laughed, tension washing out of him. He said, "Mischief managed," and the whole elaborate drawing melted away. I caught his arm as he went to tuck the map in the outer pocket of his robes again.

"I don't suppose--Could I borrow that? For a little while."

He paused. Having a piece of his past, full of good memories, fall into his hands so unexpectedly, he was probably reluctant to relinquish it immediately. "Yes. Yes, of course you can."

I took it from him almost gleefully. "Good. I want to watch and see if Severus tries to slink into my rooms again."


	6. Toast and Confessions

Chapter Six: Toast and Confessions

It was hard to keep watch though. I had finished my chorale and, as I directed my students through their first dry run at it, I hid the map behind the score on my stand and snuck peeks at it when I could. Unfortunately, my peripheral vision kept confusing the moving dots for musical notes, and consequently it was my own fault that three of the tenors had to be sent to the hospital wing with tongues so swollen and hairy they looked as if a baboon was trying to back out of their mouths. The other tenors were quite safe as they'd managed to cock up my misdirections.

Trying not to show how glad I was of an excuse, I let the class out early and almost skipped back to my rooms. I would get all my work done and then turn in for an early night because tomorrow was Saturday again, and Remus had got tickets to the live broadcast of the Witching Hour with Celestina Warbeck.

Up early, we traveled by floo network to London so we would be at the Wizarding Wireless Network studio by 7 a.m. The show was wonderful, though I discovered to my chagrin that Celestina actually used an enchanted microphone to hit some of her high notes and didn't even bother to lip synch since most of her audience was hearing her over the WWN. Her guests included a shabby little wizard from Lancashire, who played out a tune by squeezing a row of knarls set up on the table in front of him, and an impressionist whose version of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, sounded rather like he might have been expelling a baboon as well.

After the show we had lunch and spent the day haunting Diagon Alley where I found an electric blue mini-robe on clearance in a second hand shop. In a fit of daring, I bought it though I had no use for the thing. I was almost too old for it for one thing and my family was never given to long slender legs. But at least I could find use for the free frog skin belt that came with it. We made it back to Hogwarts in time to get in on the dregs of dinner, and after a walk on the castle parapets, my feet were definitely telling me it was time to call it a day.

I didn't want to. With sore feet as an excuse, I dawdled on the way as Remus escorted me to my room.

"I can't thank you enough for today. I feel like I've been on holiday for a month," I said in front of my door, holding the bag from Gladrags with the ridiculous robe in it and another with a boxed set of nice stiff quills and parchment I was sending to my Dad to encourage more letters back.

"It has been fun," he replied reservedly, watching as two Hufflepuff girls came down the hall and took the staircase down. He looked like he was going to say more, but a gaggle of young spit-covered Gryffindors came out of a room across the way with gobstone pouches in their hands and stood there arguing about who had possibly cheated who during their club meeting. "Well, back to work then." He tried to hand me my third bag which held copies of i _Musical Misadventures Among Muggles /i _ and i _Chanting for Change: Strategies for Social Action /i _ that I'd picked up in a used book shop. The bag slipped from my hand, I caught it by clamping my elbow to my middle, and promptly dropped the Gladrags one to the floor.

He scooped it up with nothing less than a grin. "Looks like you need help with all that." And both of us, relieved of the requirement for excuses or invitations, shoved into my room and closed the door to the prying eyes of students behind us.

I let the bags fall to the floor at my feet, hearing a simultaneous third clunk as he did likewise, just before gathering me into an embrace. His mouth was tender, desperate, his arms the same. A delicious tingle rose in my belly, a hunger that had nothing to do with the slim pickings left for dinner. I held his head as his lips explored my throat, his hand closed gently around my breast, a whimper escaping me when he grazed me with his teeth.

"Wait, Nerissa," he said suddenly, pushing me away to arm's length. I gasped with a mixture of surprise and frustration. "Before we…before we go any further. There's something very important you must know." He ran a hand through his hair, seeming at a loss for words, and looked at me with apprehension as if fearful to say another word.

My heart pounded in my ears. It was the moment I'd been dreading. I didn't want truth right then, or secrets, I just wanted him. "Please, Remus, it doesn't have to be forever. It doesn't even have to be for tomorrow." I picked up his hand, kissed his knuckles, and set it on my breast again. "Make love to me tonight. No honesty, no fears, just this." I squeezed the hand cupping me. "Just a gift and that's all."

Desire and reluctance warred in his face. Almost despondently, he kissed me again. I could hear his breath quicken as his hands explored me, found their way under my robe to brush the skin across my ribs. Breathing deeper myself, I met his tongue with my own while I fumbled with the worn buttons at the neck of his robe.

"No." He withdrew, grabbed my hands, and held them between us. "I'm sorry. I can't. Not unless you know. It wouldn't be fair."

"What?" I squealed, angry now. "Are you married?"

"Heavens no!" His brows shot up at the thought. "No woman in her right mind would marry me."

I caressed his face. "How can you say that?"

He pulled my hand down again, to hold it firmly with the other one. "Nerissa, don't. Listen." He looked around the room and lacking anywhere else, dragged us over to the bed to sit down together. "Nerissa, I'm a werewolf."

He said it so fast I almost missed it. "You're what?"

"A werewolf," he repeated, gently. "That wolf you found in my office, that was no classroom specimen that was me. It was the night of the full moon."

"But you're the kindest man I've ever met," I said in disbelief, a part of me still wondering if I had misheard him somehow. I laughed, at a distance hearing the slightly hysterical tinge to it. "You're not dangerous."

"I can be. If I'm not careful I could even kill."

"You're joking. I can't believe it."

"You have to," he said sadly. "Though looking at you, I would give anything to make it not true. I am a werewolf. At the full moon I transform into a beast with no desire except to feed on human flesh."

I stared at him, mouth hanging open, trying to comprehend. Terrifying rumors and legends swamped my brain, threatening to overwhelm my reason but I knew from my own experience that the stories told of half-humans often had little to do with reality. I challenged him. "If you were dangerous how could you live at a school? Wouldn't you be picking off students every month? You'd be more of a threat than Sirius Black!"

"You asked if anyone had ever tried to tame the Whomping Willow. No one ever has because it was planted for a reason. It guards a tunnel that leads from Hogwarts to the Shrieking Shack. When I was a boy, every month I was smuggled out of the castle to spend my transformations there. The shack isn't haunted; it never was. It was me, raging that I couldn't escape, tearing at my own skin because there wasn't any other."

"But the wolf I saw--"

He gave me a teacher's look at a student speaking out of turn. "Recently a wolfsbane potion has been developed. It's very complicated, very expensive, but Snape has the necessary ability to prepare it for me. Dumbledore assured me I would have access to it. When I take it every day preceding the full moon, I still transform but I am able to maintain some of my own identity; I'm calmer, groggy in fact. I have spent every full moon curled up asleep in my office." Letting go of my hands at last, he focused on his knees. "I should have told you a long time ago, but like a school boy, I was afraid you wouldn't like me anymore. I'm sorry."

I shoved myself back on the bed and drew up my legs, so my back was against the wall and I could see the sad way he was sitting, slumped, head down. My robe sagged open where he'd unbuttoned it. I picked up a pillow and hugged it. "Who else knows?"

"Some of the other teachers; those like McGonagall that were at Hogwarts when I was a student. And Snape."

"Because he has to make the potion."

"No, because I almost killed him. When we were young, he saw me going into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, you see, and he followed." The room was growing dark. He got up and wandered from candlestick to candlestick, igniting them while I worried my lower lip.

When he came back to stand at the bedside, I asked, "How long have you been a werewolf then?"

"I was very small when I was bitten. Fortunately there were many people along the way--my parents to start with, and Dumbledore--who helped me to have a normal life. Well, as normal as one could hope for."

"You mean as normal as possible with everyone hating half-humans and trying to pass discriminatory laws. Not being able to find work and being evicted as soon as someone finds out what you are," I said, bitterness in my throat. "Always being suspect. Being hated."

He raised his eyebrows and sat down warily, as if afraid to break a fragile hope.

I took a deep breath and shoved myself off of the bed. I knelt down and thrust my arm deep under the mattress to feel around. Puzzled, Remus scooted out of the way. My fingers touched silver and I slid the flat ornate case out. "Well, in the interest of being fair, I have something to tell you too." I said it lightly but my stomach lurched upward and my throat constricted. "You may fear the moon once a month, when you are no longer human, but I'm not human at all, not entirely."

It was hard to sing the three notes that sprang the catch on the silver box. My voice quivered, but the lid popped open with a musical chime revealing a light gray pelt with black speckles, like a sleek furred tube that shone in the candlelight as I stood up and drew it out across the bed. "This is my skin. My mother was a selkie and I'm one too, what her people call a 'land child' because my father is a wizard and I wasn't born on the shore. It doesn't have the best of connotations. Have you ever watched a seal on land?"

He stared at me, swallowed, and asked, "May I…?" extending his hand toward the pelt.

"Yes. It's as much me as this skin is," I replied, pinching my arm.

Fingers spread, he touched it delicately and lowered his palm to sweep across it. "It's like silk." He shook his head and when he looked up at me he wore a wry smile. "I never suspected."

I propped a hand on my hip. "That's the idea, isn't it?" A chuckle bubbled up out of him to dissolve my fear, like a flame doused by seawater. "What are you laughing at?"

That only induced more laughter. He flung his arms around my hips, almost knocking me off balance, and with his face pressed against my belly, he said deliberately, "I think I'm ready to get on with making love to you."

"If you don't, I'm going to bite you. Seals are carnivores too, you know."

---------------------------------------------------

If I'd been wise, I'd have skipped breakfast. But I was so famished and fluttery I needed something to bring me back to earth. With a last kiss, Remus slipped out the door to go wash up and change, promising to meet me at the staff table, and leaving me to make myself presentable again. Fortunately, I caught sight in the mirror of the red marks on my throat and healed them before they provided fodder for comment. For a moment, fingertips playing on my skin, my mind drifted back to the previous night, to the feel of his lips on me, the weight of his scarred body. I giggled and spun around, caught my feet on a robe on the floor, and ended up falling on my rear into a chair. Laughing, I pulled my shoes on and hurried from the room so Remus wouldn't be at the table before me.

I stopped at the doorway to the Great Hall, straightened myself up, and strode to the table trying to look friendly but not meet anybody's eyes. When I pulled out my chair and sat down next to her, Minerva was tapping the top of an egg with a spoon. She turned from a conversation with Dumbledore about a proposed change in the regulation of portkeys to wish me good morning.

"Good morning!" I replied a little too brightly. She paused and looked over her glasses at me. My cheeks ached with the effort of not grinning as I surveyed the offerings on the table, selected a dish of scrambled eggs, and shoveled almost a third of them out onto the plate in front of me.

Remus entered the hall, not through the side door behind the staff table that the teachers usually used, but through the main doors so that he passed down between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, greeting students as he went. "Hallo, Hannah. How are you, Neville? 'Morning, Harry!" He touched me on the shoulder briefly, and sat down, then clapped his hands together and rubbed them heartily, "Good morning, everyone!" He scootched his chair closer to the table and reached over to pick up a rack of toast. "I'm ravenous."

Both Minerva and Dumbledore paused again to look at him. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Good morning, Remus."

Severus joined the table next, sitting down beside me with a scowl on his face that only deepened when Remus chirped, "Good morning, Severus! Toast?"

He glared as if offered poison and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Remus offered the rack to me. "Toast?"

"Thank you." I took a slice and laid it on my plate.

"Butter?"

"Thank you."

"Currant jelly?"

"Umm." I nodded fervently. "Please."

"Bacon?"

"Three rashers, please," I coughed out through lips clamped around a laugh. Minerva was staring at us, egg yolk dripping from her teaspoon onto the tablecloth. "Yes, that's lovely."

"Is there anything else you'd like?"

I snorted and covered my face with my napkin, not able to meet his eyes.

Dumbledore beamed benevolently. "How nice to see everyone in such a happy mood this morning."

Minerva's thin lips twitched; she focused on her egg with sudden interest.

Severus growled, threw his napkin down in disgust, and stalked away from the table.

"Ah, well, nose to the grindstone, eh?" said Remus.

-----------------------------------

A leisurely breakfast over with, I walked to my office, humming, intending to write a letter to my Dad. I had a lot to tell him, leaving out certain specifics, of course. I shoved the door open and stopped dead. Severus was sitting at my desk, idly reading an essay off the pile I'd finished correcting, feet up and crossed at the ankles.

"Severus," I said, nonplussed. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you." He let the parchment roll up and set it aside.

"What do you want?"

"What makes you think I want anything? I couldn't possibly want anything from you." His eyes glittered dangerously.

"That's funny. I thought we were friends."

He shot upright, fury in his sharp features, fists white at his sides. Mastering himself, he slowly uncurled his fingers and sat down again in my chair. "Perhaps so. That is why I tried my best to warn you about Lupin. Advice you deliberately ignored too, so don't give me all that 'friend' rubbish. And just when it seemed you were coming to your senses, I saw the pair of you coming out of my office, cooing like pigeons." He spat the words.

My heart pounded in my chest, neck rigid, I strained to hear Remus, students, anyone, coming down the corridor so that I would not be alone with him, but there was no one.

He was still controlled, but the effort turned his face an ugly shade of red. "I was concerned; I thought you might even be under an imperious curse. Then, seeing your behavior at breakfast, I was sure of it. I went to your room."

Anger started to nudge my dread aside. I strode to the table and planted my hands on it, glaring at him. He didn't budge, looking up at me as if my response was quite insignificant. "Did you break in again? I know you've done it before!"

"I went there," he said, raising his voice louder than my own but still speaking slowly and deliberately, "to see if i _he'd /i _ been there."

"That's none of your business!"

"I am a professor at this school; the safety of all within its walls are very much my business."

"Safety? This isn't about safety! You don't like Remus. You never have!"

"No. I don't like Remus." He enunciated every word and then breathed, "But I did like you."

My mouth opened, stunned for a moment, I stared at him. "You're jealous!" I said, realization dawning.

His nostrils flared. "I'm not."

I longed to slap him. "That's why you've been breaking in, isn't it? What have you been doing? Fondling my socks?"

He face deepened to purple, a vein throbbing in his forehead. He stood up so that he was taller than me and leaned across, bringing his face near mine. Next to my ear, he said quiet and hard, "I couldn't understand why you would prefer something like him over me. But it all makes sense now, doesn't it?" He twitched his robes aside to free his arm and I feared he was about to strike me, but he reached under his side of my desk. To my horror he pulled out my skin and placed it on the desk between us.

In our passion of the night before, I had forgot to put it away. I'd left it lying on the floor like an old blanket. I choked on my fear. "Give it back."

He snatched it away as I made a grab, holding it high above me. "Surely this doesn't belong to you."

"Give it back, Severus!"

He moved out from behind my desk, still holding my skin in the air, backing around toward the door. "I don't think so."

I spread out my hands, not taking my eyes off it. A dozen stories of selkies stranded on the shore forever, or forced into marriage with a human who held their skin hostage, darted through my head.. The thought of him stroking it sent a wave a nausea coursing up my throat. There was no pride left in my panic. "Please, I'll do anything you want. Please...just give me back my skin."

"Anything?" he sneered.

"You loathsome--!" I tried to leap up and snatch it from him but he shoved me back, wand drawn out with his other hand to hold me at bay.

"You're suddenly very particular." His eyes narrowed. "If you do that again, or even try to open your mouth to Chant something, I'll seal it forever." He paused and savored his own accidental pun.

I snapped my mouth shut.

"That's better. Don't worry, I won't keep this rag. Actually, I was planning on giving it to Dumbledore. He'll be so very interested to know what he's actually hired." He stepped backwards, wand aimed at my face, and glanced at the hallway. "You and Lupin, two little animals having a thing," he spat. "Tell me, do you do it doggy-style?"

I took my chance to make another grab, but he whirled, leaping into the hall, and slammed the door shut. I smashed into it with a cry. Grabbing the doorknob, I tried to turn it, but it was sealed. I shook it in frustration, pulled out my wand, and jabbed it at the door. i "Alohamora!" /i 

It wouldn't budge.

I kicked it hard, the thump echoing in the vaulted ceiling, and hopped back from it in pain. My mind was racing, it could not stop on a single thought but getting my skin back. I ran to the fireplace and snatched down the covered candy dish where I kept my floo powder. It had been emptied.

I charged the door again in hopes that brute force might accomplish what magic could not. I slammed into it and sank down, tears starting to roll down my cheeks. "Chant something. Anything! Think, Nerissa!" I fumed at myself. The only thing that sprang to mind would have been more likely to take out the entire wall as the door. Destroying the castle didn't seem like the way to persuade Dumbledore that my deception was benign. I hit the door with my fist in frustration.

"Professor? Professor Muir?" From the other side of the door came a small hesitant voice. "Are you all right?"

I knelt and put my mouth to the whisper-thin crack where the door met its frame. "Who's there?"

"It's Ginny Weasley."

I closed my eyes in thanks and wiped my face. "Listen, Ginny. I'm all right, but I've got myself into a bit of an embarrassment here. Do you think you could find Professor Lupin and bring him here? Only Professor Lupin. And don't spread it about if you don't mind." I tried a carefree laugh that sounded more like a cackle.

"Sure, I'll get him. Don't worry." Footsteps scurried away.

I slumped down to wait, wishing I'd brought the map with me so I could see where Remus was, where Severus was. My head drooped. I didn't even know where I was.


	7. The Forbidden Forest

Chapter Seven: The Forbidden Forest

About ten minutes later, Remus rapped on the door. "Professor Muir?"

"Remus?" I climbed to my feet. "Remus? Get me out."

The knob rattled. I heard a stern i _"Alohamora!" /i _which produced no more result than my own attempt, and then a more thoughtful, "Hmm…thank you, Ginny, you can go now." He waited and then said, "Nerissa? Stand aside, please."

I followed his instructions, his calm going a long way to helping me regain my composure. There was a bang and the doorknob shot across my office and imbedded itself in the stones opposite. A puff of pulverized stone sprinkled the floor. It was the same jinx he'd used the first time we searched for Sirius Black.

"I have got to learn that spell," I muttered.

Remus opened the door cautiously, saw I was alone, slipped in, and had to lean on it to keep it closed. "What's going on?" he asked gravely.

"Severus! He's got my skin!" Desperation made it impossible to stand still; I paced as I quickly told him what had happened. "Oh, Remus! I've got to get it back! I can't bear the thought of him touching it. And what if I could never swim again?"

"We'll get it back," he stated calmly.

I wrung my hands. "He's going straight to Dumbledore."

"Good."

"Good? What if he fires me? It's against the law for a selkie to lie about what we are. What if he has me arrested?"

"Regardless of what Severus might wish for, I know Dumbledore will be fair." I hoped he was as sure as he sounded. "You haven't lost your skin. We know exactly where it is. That's the important thing. Let's go get it."

------------------------------------------

Remus gave the password to Dumbledore's office, "Jelly slug," and the door slid aside to reveal the slowly turning spiral staircase that would take us upward. My legs felt like rubber. It was too much to believe that within hours of finally finding complete acceptance with Remus, I would lose such an essential part of myself. Remus patted me but looked away with worry in his eyes.

We rose up, leaving my stomach behind, but it lurched back into place, full of bile, as Severus came into view. He was standing, with his arms crossed in satisfaction, next to the stand holding Dumbledore's phoenix. The bird had its head cocked at him in such a way I hoped it might bite. Dumbledore sat behind his desk, his hat hung off the back of his ornately-carved chair, long white beard flowing like a stream into his lap.

"Ah good, Professor Muir, "said Dumbledore at the sight of us, and he indicated a pair of cheerful yellow-striped chairs in front of him. "I thought you'd be along soon. And Remus, how nice of you to join us. Severus, are you sure you wouldn't like to take a seat?"

"No, thank you, Professor," he replied, and licked his lips in anticipation.

Remus took hold of my arm and escorted me over in such a way that his body was between me and Severus the whole time. "It'll be all right," he whispered as I sat down.

I perched on the edge of the chair, chin high, imperious. I addressed Dumbledore. "Professor Snape has something belonging to me which he stole from my private room. I would like it back."

"From your room? Oh, dear. I don't think you mentioned that part, Severus." He said it mildly, but Severus had the grace to flush. Dumbledore carefully placed my skin, folded up, in front of him and looked down his long crooked nose at me. "Well, I'm glad you didn't leave something as important as this lying about. A selkie without her skin is a sad creature indeed."

From where I sat, the skin did not appear to be damaged. A fantasy of snatching it and making a run for it passed briefly through my head, though I knew I'd never make it out of the tower room if the headmaster didn't want me too. It was too well protected and he was too powerful a wizard. "I've done nothing wrong. I've taught as I was hired to do. He invaded my room; he went through my things. He's done it more than once. I have a right to privacy."

Severus took a step forward. "You are a magical creature masquerading as a human being. You have no rights."

"Only because the Ministry denies them," I snapped back.

"You cannot have rights without responsibilities," he seethed, "Which your people refuse to comply with. They conveniently disappear under the water whenever they're held accountable."

"Responsibilities? Is that what they are?" I said, starting to rise. "Let me tag you and see how you like it."

Remus held up his hands to calm me down. I scooted back in the chair, arms crossed, and glowered at him.

"I'm on your side," he reminded me softly.

Pretending Severus was no longer there, I said to Dumbledore, "I'm sorry, Professor, I should have told you when you were considering hiring me. It isn't my intention to be difficult or deceitful. My father is a wizard, so I am not accepted among selkies either. I don't want to live my life as a human or a selkie. Either one would be untrue. I want to be what I am: both. But it is very difficult. If you would please return my skin, I will pack immediately."

Slow, deliberate clapping interrupted me. Smirking, Severus said, "Very moving. Shall I contact the Ministry now?"

"The Ministry?" Dumbledore asked, bemused.

For the first time a flicker of uncertainty showed in Severus's face. "Yes. The Ministry. To report this deception."

Dumbledore blinked as if surprised by this suggestion. "But, Severus, I have not been deceived. I knew what Professor Muir was when I hired her. When I reinstated Chanting I wanted to ensure we would have the best teacher possible. Even you must admit that the sea folks deserve their reputation for that."

I stared at him, at a loss for words, hope fluttering in my chest.

"It was not known to me!" Severus persisted, putting clenched fists on Dumbledore's desk.

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Oh, I see. Did you ask Professor Muir if she was not fully human?"

"No," he snarled through clenched teeth. The muscles in Severus's cheek twitched; his usually sallow complexion had returned to the shade of an eggplant.

Dumbledore looked at Remus, eyes sparkling. "Perhaps Professor Snape is concerned that i _you /i _ have been deceived. I trust she informed you, did she not?"

"Yes. She did," he said, cheerfully.

"Well, that's all right then." He folded his long fingers together and rested them in front of him. "I'm appreciate your thoroughness in bringing this to my attention, Severus, but it would seem that Professor Muir is well within the legal requirements. It is only illegal to lie about being a selkie, not to be one." He nodded Remus's direction. "I'm sure Professor Lupin is also grateful for your vigilance."

Remus opened his mouth to say something then seemed to think better of it, with a warning glance at me to also stay quiet.

Dumbledore picked up my skin tenderly and held it out. "Yours I believe, Nerissa?"

I stood up and reached for it. Tears blurred my eyes as I touched its softness. "Thank you." I pulled it to my chest and hugged it hard, sitting back down again before my knees started to tremble.

"I hope you find many opportunities to use it in the future."

Severus whirled with enough force his cloak billowed, but his hatred was directed at Remus, not me. He leaned into his face almost nose to nose. My hand went into my robe pocket to close around my wand.

More dangerous than I had heard yet, Severus said, "This isn't over yet, Lupin." He swept out of the room, knocking aside a delicate armillary sphere near the doorway so that it shattered like spun glass.

----------------------------------

In a lazy spiral roll, I sank to the bottom of the lake and sunk my upturned nose into the silt, clamping teeth on a glinting bit of gold. A few strong sweeps propelled me back up to the surface. With a leap, I landed on the pebbled shore and flopped my way up onto the flat rock that Remus was sitting on. I dropped the galleon in his lap and gave him a wet whiskery kiss that set him laughing before I rolled over to wriggle out of my seal skin. He had a towel and robe waiting. Another Hogsmeade weekend meant most of the students were gone for the day, and the lonely spot where I used to come and brood now offered companionship and privacy. While I dried off, he picked up the skin and shook the shimmering droplets off it. All my coaxing had failed to get him in the water with me, even though Spring had come to warm it.

I tried again, anyway. "I promise not to try to drown you, no matter what the legends say."

"I don't know how to swim," he said, once more avoiding what I knew to be the real reason: decades of transformation scars had left him too self-conscious.

"You couldn't find a better teacher." I longed to share it with him, to show him the splendor dwelling below the surface, to float together on the water alone between sea and sky. Against my will, I was beginning to have a new appreciation of my mother's life. It made me distinctly uncomfortable. I wrapped the towel around myself, tucking it under at the top so it would hold.

Remus caught my hand, squinting at the sunshine as he smiled up at me. "I don't think I have your advantage."

"At least it's an advantage sometimes," I said. He tugged gently, and I accepted it as an invitation to sink down next to him and receive a gentle kiss. When we parted, I said, "I suppose we both do have an advantage. I mean, look at Hagrid, he couldn't hide what he is if he tried. Anyone could guess he's half giant. And the Fin Folk that live in the lake can't come out and spend a day shopping in Diagon Alley. Sometimes it's just easier to pretend you fit in. Merlin knows life can be hard enough."

He ran his fingertips down my arm, raising a delicious line of goose bumps that the coldest water and coolest breeze would not have produced. "You're philosophical today."

"Swimming reminds me of what's important. I'm just tired of feeling guilty and ashamed all the time. If people know about me, I spend all my time trying to convince them I'm not like the stories. And then I feel foolish because, really, I'm still hiding by trying too hard. And if they don't know, I feel guilty about being dishonest, and angry that I might be ashamed of what I am. There's no winning, is there?"

"Yes. There is. Once in a while. I feel like a Tri-Wizard champion." He looked at me so tenderly warmth melted in my core. "Thank God Dumbledore convinced me to come back. The best times of my life have been here at Hogwarts."

"If you're not careful, I really will give the students something to spy on."

He grinned, took hold of me, and I sank into a kiss as hungry as deep water.

I stood up to shuffle the robe over my head, sat down next to him, and picked up the coin. I gave it a flip in the air and let it land in his lap again. "Someone's been making wishes."

"Probably a student panicking about exams next week."

------------------------------------------

My students may not have had to worry about O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s. but they still had to sit exams. Though it took more time, I had to arrange with each of them individually. By Thursday, I had decided that perhaps it was a blessing my classes were sparsely populated. I had barely seen Remus. Unfortunately, the moon was waxing close to full again and the effort to focus on exams was taking what energy he had. I offered to help correct the written portion of the exams for him, at least for the first and second years, but he favored practical exams and so even though he had given me a pile, he was still left with the majority of the work.

I sighed and rested my chin in my hand. Candlelight flickered on the rounded walls of my office; it had grown dark enough hours ago that they no longer provided sufficient light to keep me from drowsing. I rubbed my eyes and Chanted a few energy bars to stay awake, though doing it to yourself was rather self-defeating. I was also worried about the chorale. I'd let everyone take a break from practice this week because of exams but Dumbledore had asked that we perform at the end of the year feast and we were nowhere near ready. Maybe in my desire to be liked by my students, I'd been too nice. The spidery writing on the scroll before me wavered. My eyelids drooped. I pushed the scroll aside to rest my head for just a moment.

I woke from a dream in which Remus was dogpaddling toward me across an endless loch of water. I shouted encouragement and he struggled, panting, with all his strength, but though he appeared to be moving, he never managed to get any nearer. There was a banging sound, like Muggles with their firelegs. My head jerked up, quill dropping off my face where it had been momentarily stuck with drool. I wiped my cheek and by the black smear across the back of my hand, knew a streak had been left behind. Glancing at the high narrow window, I saw that the moon had already moved on past it. It could have been well past midnight. Remus would be a wolf by now. I had spent some time with him during his last two transformations; I would feel guilty if I did not at least check in with him tonight too.

There was a knock on my door, like enough to the shots in my dream that I realized it wasn't the first. "Professsor Muir?" said a voice I recognized at once as belonging to Dumbledore.

"Yes? Come in!" I rubbed my cheek without benefit as the door opened and the now familiar crooked nose and beard popped in to peer around before being followed by the rest of the headmaster. He was wearing a purple dressing gown and a grim face. I hopped to my feet. "What's the matter?"

"There have been some fortunate and not so fortunate events tonight. Dementors have once again attempted to attack a pair of students, but they have been removed from Hogwarts and the surrounding environs once and for all," he said with grim satisfaction. "Certain others have escaped the Ministry's justice. It is all very complicated but you should know that Remus was…occupied…and did not take his potion." He held up his hand, patting the air to calm me and did not continue until I sat down again.

"Where is he?" I demanded.

"That's why I'm here. I'm not exactly sure."

I inhaled a shocked breath and waited for him to continue.

"He was last seen running away into the depths of the Forbidden Forest."

My shoulders drooped with relief. I had been sure he was going to say someone had been bitten, or worse. "Thank goodness he's somewhere away from anyone."

He picked up my quill and twirled it thoughtfully between his fingers as he spoke. "When I asked him to come back to Hogwarts, I gave him my assurance that his needs would be looked after. You may have noticed that I have a special fondness for him and I'm gratified that you do too." He set the quill down and pinned me with a very serious look, brows drawn together. "I want you to go find him. Make sure he's all right. I'm very much concerned that he'll leave over this."

The thought chilled me. "Of course. Of course, I'll find him." I jumped up and looked around me wildly before snatching up an old cloak tossed over a knight stand. Remus would be naked when he came back to himself, somewhere alone, out in the wilderness. I strode to the door, pausing uncertainly before I went out, suddenly aware that it would be a very different Remus than I had ever seen. "What…what should I do when I find him?"

"I'm sure you'll think of something. You have an advantage the rest of us don't have."

My eyes widened but there was no time to question him. I left my office at a run, feet beating a frightened tattoo on the flagstones.

------------------------------------

There are very few trees on the Orkneys. Mostly the land is soft and rounded and the wind blows across it continuously. The canopy of the Forbidden Forest was so dense the sky peeked through in only a few ragged tears. The air was thick and still. I lost the path almost immediately and had to squeeze through the grasp of the trees, feeling so closed in that it might even crush the breath out of me. Stumbling on roots, branches whipping my face and hands, I was soon sure that I would be the one in need of rescue. But I was not alone. A million insects hummed in the June warmth, calling each other. Bats flittered overhead, clicking and chittering after them.

"Remus!" My throat was rough. He would not understand me anyway. "Remus!" I shouted again, desperately.

I still clutched the cloak, though it had caught and torn twice, and my seal skin was tucked protectively under my robes. Assuming Dumbledore's comment was prophetic, I had paused only long enough to get it but I still didn't know what I was going to do. If Remus was still in his wolf form, he would be largely immune to any stunning spell. It would take several wizards to tackle him. When I found him, maybe I'd have time to slip my skin on. Werewolves were only dangerous to humans. Then what was I supposed to do? Flop on my belly through the trees? As a seal I was worthless on land. As a human I was little more than bait. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, I was afraid. Afraid of Remus.

"Ugghh!" I exclaimed, flailing at the air in front of me. I had walked right into a spider's web. A flutter of furred legs ran across my cheek. Brushing and beating at my head and shoulders, I stumbled in a circle.

"Who are you?" said a low perilous voice.

"Wh-what?"

Now I heard rustling. A twig snapped. A different voice said, "No. What are you?"

Forms solidified out of the night, big, big forms, three men on horseback, no three men with horsebacks, and most alarming, arrows cocked at me, and they'd asked me directly. I gulped. "I'm-I'm a selkie."

That brought a scowl to the chestnut colored centaur closest to me; his nose twitched as if he was smelling me.

"What are you doing so far from the sea?" asked the second one who'd spoken, regarding me calmly. He was pale in the moonlight, white headed and yellow-bodied, and most importantly, he had lowered his bow slightly so he could regard me with curiosity.

"I'm looking for someone. A friend who is -- lost."

"Another selkie in the forest? Lost indeed." The laughter from the darkest one was not friendly and it was joined by the red one.

"No. Not a selkie. He's a werewolf."

The laughter died instantly. The three exchanged significant looks and then the pale one glanced at the moon. "The moon is a harsh mistress. But a wolf in the forest is hardly lost. Why are you searching for him? He's no danger to those who don't belong in it."

"He could be a danger to himself. Besides this close to the school, a student could wander in or he might make his way out. Anyway," I said, impatient, "have you seen him?"

"No," said the dark one so abruptly that the others would not disagree. "Best get back to your pond, selkie." He turned away. "We have our own business to attend to." He walked a few feet away and stood there significantly until the red one followed.

The pale one took a few steps and paused. He swung back around and pointed to the left. In a quiet tone he said, "I'd suggest you try that direction."

"Firenze! Come on."

The pale one nodded a silent farewell and left with the others. They disappeared as completely as if they'd been forest ghosts and maybe they were. Ghosts could inhabit many things and there must have been many souls who wandered in and, like myself, got lost in the endless tangle. I followed Firenze's advice. It was as good a direction as any.

Groping in front of me, I shoved through a brambly patch, crying out when a branch snapped back and caught me hard across the leg. My fingers touched blood. Cries, the scent of fresh blood, and an idiot crashing about like a mad cow, surely if I couldn't find Remus, he'd have no trouble finding me. Salt tears stung the scratches on my face. What new scars would he bear from tonight?

"Remus…" My voice faltered. My leg ached. I stumbled forward again and ducked as some creature darted out of the brush and disappeared before I could even see what it was. How late was it? How long had I been searching? The drone of the insects drilled into my head making it hard to think. So loud. So very loud.

I froze. A low rumble had scraped along the bottom of the drone for a moment. I turned slightly to my left and saw it coming out of the darkness not ten feet away: a huge wolf, eyes reflecting yellow. It growled at me again, head lowered and teeth bared. I knew the dense luxury of his fur, now spiked in anger, the power of his limbs, now tensed to spring. It was Remus. His name came silently to my lips, no air left in my lungs to make it audible. Blood stained his muzzle; clotted streaks striped his haunches.

Wolves regarded staring as a challenge, I knew, but I was too scared to look away. My knees bent under me so that I sank a little lower as I said his name again. I slowly slid my hand under my robe to pull my skin out. His ears pulled back irritably and he growled again, sniffing the air. He looked like he was measuring the distance. I froze again. I would never have my skin on in time.


	8. The Simmer Dim

Chapter Eight: The Simmer Dim

But this was Remus I reminded myself. Hope surfaced with a wild idea. The wolf took a step toward me. Barely able to find my voice, I started to sing.

I Hush, child, take no fright

Calm the beast inside

Morning, noon, or longest night

I'll be by your side. /I 

He paused, ears twitching, raising his head slightly. I swallowed and Chanted it through again, gathering more strength to the notes. The wolf swung his head side to side uncertainly, and growled again but this time the timbre was more defensive. I switched languages, returning the chant to the language of my mother's people, increasing its potency, and continued to sing until the wolf whined and dropped his tail.

I sank further down myself so that I was sitting at the base of a tree. The wolf looked uncertain now but that made him no less dangerous. I looked away, gazing off into the woods as if I had no concern but to sit and enjoy the scenery, willing my heart to be calm, wondering if he could hear it racing out of tune with my chant. Slowly the wolf inched closer, limbs still tense, snuffling at my scent.

When it finally sat down, at fingertip's length from me, I paused. "Remus," I said softly. "Can you remember who you are?"

The golden eyes gave no answer. My throat was dry. I drew a shuddering gulp of night air and began Chanting again.

When dawn came, weak and pale, seeping through the canopy in scant hope of reaching the forest floor, I was still leaning against the tree, my limbs stiff and sore. Remus was lying on the leaves with his head in my lap, the cloak covering the dirt-encrusted gashes that desecrated his naked flesh.

-----------------------------

I limped across the entrance hall as fast as I could, a crushed bit of parchment in my fist. My body ached despite Madame Pomfrey's Pepper-Up. It could have been the fact that I wasn't fully human that the potion didn't work properly -- smoke didn't even leak out of my ears -- or it could have simply been grief. I thought I was sinking in the swell of it until I stepped through the main doors and saw the coach waiting at the bottom of the stairs, then I understood sorrow as I had never before. The thestrals waiting in the carriage shafts pawed the ground restlessly; every stamp marked my heart. I walked down a few steps and stopped, unable to go any farther.

I heard the groan of the great doors as one opened and shut again. Above me, Remus said, "So you came. I thought you might not. I thought it might be too hard."

"I spent last night with the wolf, Remus," I replied, angrily. "Don't you tell me what's too hard. Maybe it's too hard for you."

He flushed and looked as his feet. The battered case he was carrying on the day I first saw him was in one hand, looking even more likely to split open and spill books and socks down the stairs. An empty tank was tucked under his other arm. "Actually, I thought you might be too upset with me."

I brandished the parchment whose smeared ink was almost unreadable now. He'd left the letter on my pillow while I napped. "Of course, I'm upset. This is so stupid and unfair and--and--and I'm furious!"

Sadness filled his tired features, he came down the steps, set his things down at his feet, and rested a hand on my shoulder. "It was inevitable, really. I wanted so badly to trust Dumbledore, to trust myself, that I came here against my better judgment, but even he makes mistakes sometimes."

"But nothing happened really. Everyone's fine. You're the only one hurt."

A wry smile flickered across his mouth as his thumb traced a scratch across my cheek. "The only one?"

Tears filled my eyes, spilled out, and dampened the back of his hand. "Please, Remus. Don't go."

He kissed me tenderly on the forehead and his arms encircled me with compassion not compliance. "This is not an argument either of us can win. I really would rather leave before the owls begin arriving. I've seen the letters before; it's too painful the other way. Snape said it wasn't over yet and he was right."

I sniffed and scrubbed at my face. "Then I'll go too."

"No. The term's almost over. You have a place here now."

"I don't want it. I don't want to stay without you. Remus…I love you."

He blanched and I thought I saw his resolve waver. "I love you too, Nerissa. Hogwarts has worked its magic for me again. I will never regret this year. Not in the slightest."

I threw my arms around him and crushed my mouth against his, tasting the sea in my tears. A sound like a sob caught in his throat, but he took hold of me and pushed me back, holding me off so he could stoop and pick up his case. "I'll feel better knowing you're doing well. Stay and teach the children. Miss Granger needs you--"

"--She told me last week that she's taken too many classes. She's going to drop Chanting next year--"

"--and you can help protect Harry."

"He's not one of my students. I don't even know him."

"Then stay for my sake, Nerissa. Because I can't." He picked up the tank and started down the remaining steps decisively. But I chased after, yanked the tank out from under his arm, and hurled it down the steps. It bounced once and shattered next time it hit, spraying the drive near the carriage with twinkling shards. He kept walking.

"You haven't even told me where you're going!" I shouted.

"I don't know." Now he was at the coach and he yanked the door open with more force than necessary in order to throw his case in. A little step flipped out to ease entrance. He put his foot on it and hesitated. "Actually…maybe I could head north. Very very far north." He smiled at me, looking almost shy. "I'll could find a little island somewhere. Someplace suitable for a Hogwart's professor to spend the summer. I understand there's some fascinating archaeology up there. And the night doesn't ever come this time of year."

"The simmer dim," I whispered.

"The simmer dim," he repeated. He stared at me for a long time while a gentle breeze dried my cheeks and tousled my hair. Then he reached into the coach, shoved his case over, and climbed in. The step curled back in. The door slammed shut. The thestrals gave a hop and the carriage jerked into motion. It pulled around the wide sweep of the drive, wheels gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, and headed out toward the iron gates which were no longer guarded by dementors. The gates parted and Remus passed between the great stone columns topped with winged boars holding the school crest.


End file.
